RB 


Love's    Cross-currents 


A  Year's  Letters 


By 


Algernon  Charles  Swinburne 


New  York  and  London 

Harper  £r  Brothers  Publishers 
1905 


Copyright,  1905,  by  HARPBR  &  BROTHERS. 

All  riffiti  rtttntd. 

Published  July,  1905. 


•1LF. 
URt 


TO   THEODORE   WATTS-DUNTON 


As  it  has  pleased  you  to  disinter  this  buried  bant- 
ling of  your  friend's  literary  youth,  and  to  find  it 
worth  resurrection,  I  must  inscribe  it  to  you  as  the 
person  responsible  for  its  revival.  Were  it  not  that 
a  friend's  judgment  may  always  seem  liable  to 
be  coloured  by  the  unconscious  influence  of  friend- 
ship, I  should  be  reassured  as  to  its  deserts  by  the 
approval  of  a  master  from  whose  verdict  on  a 
stranger's  attempt  in  the  creative  art  of  fiction 
there  could  be  no  reasonable  appeal — and  who, 
I  feel  bound  to  acknowledge  with  gratitude  and 
satisfaction,  has  honoured  it  by  the  sponsorial 
suggestion  of  a  new  and  a  happier  name.  As  it 
is,  I  can  only  hope  that  you  may  not  be  for  once 
mistaken  in  your  favourable  opinion  of  a  study 
thrown  into  the  old  epistolary  form  which  even 
the  giant  genius  of  Balzac  could  not  restore  to  the 
favour  it  enjoyed  in  the  days  of  Richardson  and 
of  Laclos.  However  that  may  be,  I  am  content 
to  know  that  you  agree  with  me  in  thinking 

iii 


Love's   Cross-currents 

that  in  the  world  of  literary  creation  there  is  a 
legitimate  place  for  that  apparent  compromise  be- 
tween a  story  and  a  play  by  which  the  alternate 
agents  and  patients  of  the  tale  are  made  to  ex- 
press what  befalls  them  by  word  of  mouth  or  of 
pen.  I  do  not  forget  that  the  king  of  men  to  whose 
hand  we  owe  the  glorious  history  of  Redgauntlet 
began  it  in  epistolary  form,  and  changed  the 
fashion  of  his  tale  to  direct  and  forthright  narra- 
tive when  the  story  became  too  strong  for  him,  and 
would  no  longer  be  confined  within  the  limits  of 
conceivable  correspondence:  but  his  was  in  its 
ultimate  upshot  a  historic  and  heroic  story.  And 
I  have  always  regretted  that  we  have  but  one  speci- 
men of  the  uncompleted  series  of  letters  out  of 
which  an  earlier  novel,  the  admirable  Fortunes  of 
Nigel,  had  grown  up  into  immortality.  The 
single  sample  which  Lockhart  saw  fit  to  vouch- 
safe us  is  so  great  a  masterpiece  of  dramatic 
humour  and  living  imagination  that  the  remainder 
of  a  fragment  which  might  well  suffice  for  the  fame 
of  any  lesser  man  ought  surely  to  have  been  long 
since  made  public.  We  could  not  dispense  with 
the  doubtless  more  generally  amusing  and  inter- 
esting narrative  which  superseded  it :  but  the  true 
and  thankful  and  understanding  lover  of  Scott 
must  and  will  readily  allow  or  affirm  that  there  are 
signs  of  even  rarer  and  finer  genius  in  the  can- 
celled fragment  of  the  rejected  study.  But  these 

iv 


Dedication 

are  perhaps  too  high  and  serious  matters  to  be 
touched  upon  in  a  note  of  acknowledgment  pre- 
fixed  to  so  early  an  attempt  in  the  great  art  of 
fiction  or  creation  that  it  would  never  have  re- 
visited the  light  or  rather  the  twilight  of  publicity 
under  honest  and  legitimate  auspices,  if  it  had 
not  found  in  you  a  sponsor  and  a  friend. 


Contents 


PAGE 

PROLOGUE    i 

I.  LADY    MIDHURST    TO    MRS.  RADWORTH    .       .  39 

II.  MRS.    RADWORTH    TO    FRANCIS    CHEYNE       .  49 

III.  LADY    MIDHURST    TO    LADY    CHEYNE       .       .  53 

IV.  FRANCIS    CHEYNE    TO    MRS.    RADWORTH       .  62 
V.  LADY    CHEYNE    TO    FRANCIS    CHEYNE       .       .  65 

VI.  LADY  MIDHURST  TO  REGINALD  HAREWOOD  68 

VII.  REGINALD  HAREWOOD  TO  EDWARD  AUDLEY  79 

VIII.  FRANCIS    CHEYNE    TO    MRS.    RADWORTH       .  82 

IX.  LADY    MIDHURST    TO    LADY    CHEYNE       .       .  85 

X.  LADY    MIDHURST    TO    LADY    CHEYNE       .       .  93 

XI.  REGINALD  HAREWOOD  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH  103 

XII.  MRS.  RADWORTH  TO  REGINALD  HAREWOOD  107 

XIII.  FRANCIS    CHEYNE    TO    LADY    CHEYNE       .       .  11$ 

XIV.  LADY  MIDHURST  TO  REGINALD  HAREWOOD  Il8 
XV.  LADY    CHEYNE    TO    FRANCIS 132 

XVI.  MRS.  RADWORTH  TO  LADY  MIDHURST       .       .  135 

XVII.  LADY    MIDHURST    TO    LADY    CHEYNE       .       .  139 

XVIII.  LADY    MIDHURST    TO    FRANCIS    CHEYNE       .  150 

XIX.  FRANCIS    CHEYNE    TO    MRS.    RADWORTH       .  155 

XX.  REGINALD    HAREWOOD    TO    LADY    CHEYNE  159 

XXI.  LADY    MIDHURST   TO    MRS.    RADWORTH   ,       .  l6g 

vii 


Contents 

PACK 

XXII.    CAPTAIN  HAREWOOD  TO  REGINALD       .       .  179 

XXIII.  FRANCIS  CHEYNE  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH       .  l86 

XXIV.  LADY     CHEYNE     TO     MRS.     RADWORTH       .  192 
XXV.    REGINALD  HAREWOOD  TO   EDWARD  AUD- 

LEY 196 

XXVI.  LADY   CHEYNE   TO   REGINALD    HAREWOOD  206 

XXVII.  REGINALD     HAREWOOD     TO      MRS.      RAD- 

WORTH     211 

XXVIII.    LADY   MIDHURST   TO   MRS.    RADWORTH       .  217 

XXIX.    FRANCIS  CHEYNE  TO  LADY  MIDHURST      .  232 

XXX.    LADY  MIDHURST  TO   LADY  CHEYNE       .       .  236 


Love's  Cross-currents 


Love's  Cross-currents 


PROLOGUE 


IN  the  spring  of  1849,  old  Lord  Cheyne,  the 
noted  philanthropist,  was,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered by  all  those  interested  in  social  reform, 
still  alive  and  energetic.  Indeed,  he  had 
some  nine  years  of  active  life  before  him 
—public  baths,  institutes,  reading  -  rooms, 
schools,  lecture-halls,  all  manner  of  improve- 
ments, were  yet  to  bear  witness  to  his  ardour 
in  the  cause  of  humanity.  The  equable  eye  of 
philosophy  has  long  since  observed  that  the 
appetite  of  doing  good,  unlike  those  baser 
appetites  which  time  effaces  and  enjoyment 
allays,  gains  in  depth  and  vigour  with  advanc- 
ing years — a  cheering  truth,  attested  alike  by 
the  life  and  death  of  this  excellent  man.  Re- 
ciprocal amelioration,  he  was  wont  to  -say, 


Love's    Cross-currents 

was  the  aim  of  every  acquaintance  he  made — 
of  every  act  of  benevolence  he  allowed  him- 
self. Religion  alone  was^wanting  to  complete 
a  character  almost  painfully  perfect.  The 
mutual  moral  friction  of  benefits  bestowed  and 
blessings  received  had,  as  it  were,  rubbed  off 
the  edge  of  those  qualities  which  go  to  make 
up  the  religious  sentiment.  The  spiritual 
cuticle  of  this  truly  good  man  was  so  hardened 
by  the  incessant  titillations  of  charity,  and  of 
that  complacency  with  which  virtuous  people 
look  back  on  days  well  spent,  that  the  contem- 
plative emotions  of  faith  and  piety  had  no  ef- 
fect on  it;  no  stimulants  of  doctrine  or  pro- 
vocatives of  devotion  could  excite  his  fancy 
or  his  faith — at  least,  no  clearer  reason  than 
this  has  yet  been  assigned  in  explanation  of  a 
fact  so  lamentable. 

His  son  Edmund,  the  late  lord,  was  nine- 
teen at  the  above  date.  Educated  in  the  lap 
of  philanthropy,  suckled  at  the  breasts  of  all 
the  virtues  in  turn,,  he  was  even  then  the 
worthy  associate  of  his  father  in  all  schemes  of 
improvement;  only,  in  the  younger  man,  this 
inherited  appetite  for  goodness  took  a  some- 
what singular  turn.  Mr.  Cheyne  was  a  Social- 
ist— a  Democrat  of  the  most  advanced  kind. 
The  father  was  quite  happy  in  the  construction 
of  a  model  cottage;  the  son  was  busied  with 

2 


Prologue  . 

plans  for  the  equalization  of  society.  The 
wrongs  of  women  gave  him  many  a  sleepless 
night ;  their  cause  excited  in  him  an  interest  all 
the  more  commendable  when  we  consider  that 
he  never  enjoyed  their  company  in  the  least, 
and  was,  in  fact,  rather  obnoxious  to  them  than 
otherwise.  The  fact  of  this  mutual  repulsion 
had  nothing  to  do  with  philanthropy.  It  was 
undeniable ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  moral- 
sublime  of  this  young  man's  character  was 
something  incredible.  Unlike  his  father,  he 
was  much  worried  by  religious  speculations — 
certain  phases  of  belief  and  disbelief  he  saw  fit 
to  embody  in  a  series  of  sonnets,  which  were 
privately  printed  under  the  title  of  "Aspira- 
tions, by  a  Wayfarer."  Very  flabby  sonnets 
they  were,  leaving  in  the  mouth  a  taste  of 
chaff  and  dust;  but  the  genuine  stamp  of  a 
sincere  and  single  mind  was  visible  throughout ; 
which  was  no  small  comfort. 

The  wife  of  Lord  Cheyne,  not  unnaturally, 
had  died  in  giving  birth  to  such  a  meritorious 
portent.  Malignant  persons,  incapable  of  ap- 
preciating the  moral-sublime,  said  that  she  died 
of  a  plethora  of  conjugal  virtue  on  the  part  of 
her  husband.  It  is  certain  that  less  sublime 
samples  of  humanity  did  find  the  society  of  Lord 
Cheyne  a  grievous  infliction.  Reform,  emanci- 
pation, manure,  the  right  of  voting,  the  national 

3 


Love's   Cross-currents 

burden,  the  adulteration  of  food,  mechanics, 
farming,  sewerage,  beet-root  sugar,  and  the  loft- 
iest morality,  formed  each  in  turn  the  staple  of 
that  excellent  man's  discourse.  If  an  exhausted 
visitor  sought  refuge  in  the  son's  society,  Mr. 
Cheyne  would  hold  forth  by  the  hour  on  divorce, 
Church  questions,  pantheism,  socialism  (Chris- 
tian or  simple),  the  equilibrium  of  society,  the 
duties  of  each  class,  the  mission  of  man,  the  bal- 
ance of  ranks,  education,  development,  the 
stages  of  faith,  the  meaning  of  the  age,  the  rela- 
tion of  parties,  the  regeneration  of  the  priest- 
hood, the  reformation  of  criminals,  and  the  des- 
tiny of  woman.  Had  fate  or  date  allowed  it,— 
but  stern  chronology  forbade, — he  would  assur- 
edly have  figured  as  president,  as  member,  or 
at  least  as  correspondent  of  the  Society  for  the 
Suppression  of  Anatomy,  the  Society  for  the 
Suppression  of  Sex,  or  the  Ladies'  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  Contagious  Disease  (Un- 
limited). But  these  remarkable  associations, 
with  all  their  potential  benefits  to  be  conferred 
on  purblind  and  perverse  humanity,  were  as  yet 
unprofitably  dormant  in  the  sluggish  womb 
of  time.  Nevertheless,  the  house  decidedly 
might  have  been  livelier  than  it  was. 

Not  that  virtue  wanted  its  reward.  Lord 
Cheyne  was  in  daily  correspondence  with  some 
dozen  of  societies  for  the  propagation  and  sup- 


Prologue 

pression  of  Heaven  knows  what;  Professor 
Swallow,  Dr.  Chubbins,  and  Mr.  Jonathan  Bio- 
man  were  among  his  friends.  His  son  enjoyed 
the  intimacy  of  M.  Adrien  Laboissiere,  secretary 
of  the  committee  of  a  minor  democratic  society ; 
and  Mdlle.  Cle"mence  de  Massigny,  the  too-cele- 
brated authoress  of  "Rosine  et  Rosette,"  "Con- 
fidences d'un  Fauteuil,"  and  other  dangerous 
books,  had,  when  in  the  full  glow  of  her  brief 
political  career,  written  to  the  young  son  of  pale 
and  brumous  Albion,  "pays  des  libertes  tron- 
qu6es  et  des  passions  chatrees,"  an  epistle  of 
some  twenty  pages,  in  which  she  desired  him,  not 
once  or  twice,  to  kiss  the  paper  where  she  had 
left  a  kiss  for  him — "baiser  chaste  et  fre'mis- 
sant,"  she  averred,  "  e"treinte  altiere  et  douce  de 
1'esprit  d6gag6  des  pieges  hideux  de  la  matiere, 
te'moin  et  sceau  d'un  amour  ide"al. ' '  "  O  poete !" 
she  exclaimed  elsewhere,  "versons  sur  cette 
triste  humanit6  la  rose"e  rafraichissante  de  nos 
pleurs ;  melons  sur  nos  levres  le  soupir  qui  con- 
sole au  sourire  qui  rayonne.  Chaque  larme  qui 
tombe  peut  rouler  dans  une  plaie  qu'elle  soula- 
gera.  Les  volupt6s  acres  et  seVeres  de  1'atten- 
drissement  valent  bien  le  plaisir  orageux  des 
sens  allume's."  All  this  was  astonishing,  but 
satisfactory  to  the  recipient,  and  worth  at  least 
any  two  of  his  father's  letters.  Chubbins,  Bio- 
man,  and  the  rest,  practical  men  enough  in  their 

5 


Love's   Cross-currents 

way,  held  in  some  contempt  the  infinite  and  the 
ideal,  and  were  incapable  of  appreciating  the 
absolute  republic  and  the  forces  of  the  future. 

The  arid  virtue  of  the  two  chiefs  was  not  com- 
mon to  the  whole  of  the  family.  Mr.  John 
Cheyne,  younger  brother  to  the  noted  philan- 
thropist, had  lived  at  a  great  rate  for  years; 
born  in  the  regency  period,  he  had  grasped  the 
receding  skirt  of  its  fashions ;  he  had  made  friends 
with  his  time,  and  sucked  his  orange  to  some 
purpose  before  he  came  to  the  rind.  He  married 
well,  not  before  it  was  high  time;  his  finances, 
inherited  from  his  mother,  and  originally  not 
bad  for  a  younger  son,  were  shaken  to  the  last 
screw  that  kept  both  ends  together;  he  was 
turned  of  forty,  and  his  wife  had  a  decent  fort- 
une: she  was  a  Miss  Banks,  rather  handsome, 
sharp  and  quick  in  a  good-natured  way.  She 
brought  him  a  daughter  in  1836,  and  a  son  in 
1840 ;  then,  feeling,  no  doubt,  that  she  had  done 
all  that  could  be  looked  for  from  a  model  wife, 
completed  her  good  work  by  dying  in  1841. 
John  Cheyne  consoled  himself  with  the  reflection 
that  she  might  have  done  worse ;  his  own  niece, 
the  wife  of  a  neighbour  and  friend,  had  eloped 
the  year  before,  leaving  a  boy  of  two  on  her  hus- 
band's hands.  For  the  reasons  of  this  we  must 
go  some  way  back  and  bring  up  a  fresh  set  of 
characters,  so  as  to  get  things  clear  at  starting. 

6 


Prologue 

A  reference  to  the  Peerage  will  give  us,  third 
on  the  Cheyne  family  list  of  a  past  generation, 
the  name  of  "Helena,  born  1800,  married  in 
1819  Sir  Thomas  Midhurst,  Bart.,  by  whom 
(deceased)  she  had  one  daughter,  Amicia,  born 
1820,  married  in  May,  1837,  to  Captain  Philip 
Hare  wood,  by  whom  she  had  issue  Reginald- 
Edward,  born  April  7,  1838.  This  marriage  was 
dissolved  in  1840  by  Act  of  Parliament."  And 
we  may  add,  Mrs.  Harewood  was  married  in  the 
same  year  to  Frederick  Stanford,  Esq.,  of  Ash- 
ton  Hildred,  co.  Bucks,  to  whom,  in  1841,  she 
presented  a  daughter,  named  after  herself  at  the 
father's  desire,  who  in  1859  married  the  late 
Lord  Cheyne,  just  ten  months  after  his  father's 
lamented  decease.  Lady  Midhurst,  then  already 
widowed,  took  up  her  daughter's  cause  energeti- 
cally at  the  time  of  the  divorce.  Her  first  son- 
in-law  was  her  favourite  abhorrence ;  with  her 
second  she  had  always  been  on  the  best  of  terms, 
residing,  indeed,  now  for  many  years  past  with 
him  and  his  wife,  an  honoured  inmate  for  the 
term  of  her  natural  life,  and  in  a  quiet  though 
effectual  way  mistress  of  the  whole  household. 
It  was  appalling  to  hear  her  hold  forth  on  the 
topic  of  the  unhappy  Captain  Harewood.  She 
had  known  him  intimately  before  he  married 
her  daughter ;  at  that  time  he  thought  fit  to  be 
delightful.  After  the  marriage  he  unmasked  at 

7 


Love's   Cross-currents 

once,  and  became  detestable.  (Fan  and  foot, 
clapping  down  together,  used  to  keep  time  to  this 
keen- voiced  declaration.)  He  had  used  his  wife 
dreadfully ;  at  this  day  his  treatment  of  the  poor 
boy  left  in  his  hands  was  horrible,  disgraceful 
for  its  stupidity  and  cruelty — such  a  nice  little 
fellow  the  child  was,  too,  not  the  least  like  him, 
but  the  image  of  his  mother  and  of  her  (Lady 
Midhurst),  which  of  course  was  reason  enough 
for  that  ruffian  to  ill-use  his  own  son.  There 
was  one  comfort,  she  had  leave  to  write  to  the 
boy,  and  go  now  and  then  to  see  him ;  and  she 
took  care  to  encourage  him  in  his  revolt  against 
his  father's  style  of  training.  In  effect,  as  far 
as  she  could,  Lady  Midhurst  tried  to  instil  into 
her  grandson  her  own  views  of  his  father's 
character ;  it  was  not  difficult,  seeing  that  father 
and  son  were  utterly  unlike  and  discordant.  Old 
Lord  Cheyne  (who  took  decidedly  the  Harewood 
side,  and  used  sometimes  to  have  the  boy  over 
to  Lidcombe,  where  he  revelled  about  the 
stables  all  day  long)  once  remonstrated  with  his 
sister  on  this  course  of  tactics.  "My  dear 
Cheyne,"  she  replied, in  quite  a  surprised  voice, 
"you  forget  Captain  Harewood's  estate  is  en- 
tailed." He  was  an  ex -captain;  his  elder 
brother  had  died  before  he  paid  court  to  Miss 
Midhurst,  and,  when  he  married,  the  captain 
had  land  to  settle  on.  As  a  younger  brother, 

8 


Prologue 

Lady  Midhurst  had  liked  him  extremely;  as  a 
man  of  marriageable  income,  she  gave  him  her 
daughter,  and  fell  at  once  to  hating  him. 

Capricious  or  not,  she  was  a  beautiful  old 
woman  to  look  at;  something  like  her  brother 
John,  who  had  been  one  of  the  handsomest  men 
of  his  day;  her  daughter  and  granddaughter, 
both  women  of  singular  beauty  and  personal 
grace,  inherited  their  looks  and  carriage  from 
her.  Clear-skinned,  with  pure  regular  features, 
and  abundant  bright  white  hair  (it  turned  sud- 
denly some  ten  years  after  this  date,  in  the 
sixtieth  of  her  age),  she  was  a  study  for  old 
ladies.  People  liked  to  hear  her  talk;  she  was 
not  unwilling  to  gratify  them.  At  one  time  of 
her  life,  she  had  been  known  to  say,  her  tongue 
got  her  into  some  trouble,  and  her  style  of  sar- 
casm involved  her  in  various  unpleasant  little 
differences  and  difficulties.  All  that  was  ever 
said  against  her  she  managed  somehow  to  out- 
live, and  at  fifty  and  upwards  she  was  general- 
ly popular,  except,  indeed,  with  religious  and 
philanthropic  persons.  These,  with  the  natu- 
ral instinct  of  race,  smelt  out  at  once  an  enemy 
in  her.  At  sight  of  her  acute  attentive  smile 
and  reserved  eyes  a  curate  would  become  hot 
and  incoherent,  finally  dumb;  a  lecturer  ner- 
vous, and  voluble  to  the  last. 


II 

THE  two  children  of  Mr.  John  Cheyne  enjoyed 
somewhat  less  of  their  aunt's  acquaintance  and 
care  than  did  her  grandchildren,  or  even  her 
other  nephew,  Lord  Cheyne's  politico-philan- 
thropic son  and  successor.  They  were  brought 
up  in  the  quietest  way  possible;  Clara  with  a 
governess,  who  took  her  well  in  hand  at  an  early 
age,  and  kept  her  apart  from  all  influence  but 
her  own;  Frank  under  the  lazy  kind  incurious 
eyes  of  his  father,  who  coaxed  him  into  a  little 
shaky  Latin  at  his  spare  hours,  with  a  dim  vision 
before  him  of  Eton  as  soon  as  the  boy  should  be 
fit.  Lord  Cheyne  now  and  then  exchanged 
visits  with  his  brother,  but  not  often ;  and  the 
children  not  unnaturally  were  quite  incapable  of 
appreciating  the  earnest  single-minded  philan- 
thropy of  the  excellent  man — their  father  hard- 
ly relished  it  more  than  they  did.  But  there 
was  one  man,  or  boy,  whom  John  Cheyne  held 
in  deeper  and  sincerer  abhorrence  than  he  did 
his  brother ;  and  this  was  his  brother's  son.  Mr. 
Cheyne  called  between  whiles  at  his  uncle's,  but 

10 


Prologue 

was  hardly  received  with  a  decent  welcome.  A 
clearer-sighted  or  more  speculative  man  than 
John  Cheyne  would  have  scented  a  nascent  in- 
clination on  his  nephew's  part  towards  his 
daughter.  There  was  a  sort  of  weakly  weary 
gentleness  of  manner  in  the  young  philanthro- 
pist which  the  girl  soon  began  to  appreciate. 
Clara  showed  early  enough  a  certain  acuteness, 
and  a  relish  of  older  company,  which  gave 
promise  of  some  practical  ability.  At  thirteen 
she  had  good  ideas  of  management,  and  was  a 
match  for  her  father  in  most  things.  But  she 
could  not  make  him  tolerate  his  nephew;  she 
could  only  turn  his  antipathy  to  profit  by  letting 
it  throw  forward  into  relief  her  own  childish 
friendliness.  There  was  the  composition  of  a 
good  intriguer  in  the  girl  from  the  first ;  she  had 
a  desirable  power  of  making  all  that  could  be 
made  out  of  every  chance  of  enjoyment.  She 
was  never  one  to  let  the  present  slip.  Few 
children  have  such  a  keen  sense  as  she  how  in- 
finitely preferable  is  the  smallest  limping  skinny 
half-moulted  sparrow  in  the  hand  to  the  fattest 
ortolan  in  the  bush.  She  was  handsome  too, 
darker  than  her  father's  family ;  her  brother  had 
more  of  the  Cheyne  points  about  him.  Frank 
was  not  a  bad  sort  of  boy,  quiet,  idle,  somewhat 
excitable  and  changeable,  with  a  good  deal  of 
floating  affection  in  him,  and  a  fund  of  respect 


Love's   Cross-currents 

for  his  sister.  Lady  Midhurst,  after  one  of  her 
visits  (exploring  cruises  in  search  of  character, 
she  called  them),  set  him  down  in  a  decisive 
way  as  "flat,  fade,  wanting  in  spice  and  salt; 
the  sort  of  boy  always  to  do  decently  well  under 
any  circumstances,  to  get  creditably  through 
any  work  he  might  have  to  do;  a  fellow  who 
would  never  tumble  because  he  never  jumped ; 
well  enough  disposed,  no  doubt,  and  not  a 
milksop  exactly — certain  to  get  on  comfortably 
with  most  people,  if  there  were  not  more  of  his 
father  latent  in  the  boy  than  she  saw  yet; 
whereas,  if  he  really  had  inherited  anything  of 
her  brother  John's  headstrong  irresolute  nature, 
she  was  sure  he  had  no  strong  qualities  to 
counterbalance  or  modify  it." 

Lady  Midhurst  rather  piqued  herself  on  this 
exhaustive  elaborate  style  of  summary;  and 
had,  indeed,  a  good  share  of  insight  and  analytic 
ability.  Her  character  of  Frank  was  mainly 
unfair;  but  that  quality  of  "always  doing  well 
enough  under  any  circumstances  "  the  boy  really 
had  in  some  degree:  a  rather  valuable  quality 
too.  His  aunt  would  have  admitted  the  value 
of  it  at  once ;  but  he  was  not  her  sort,  she  would 
have  added;  she  liked  people  who  made  their 
own  scrapes  for  themselves  before  they  fell  into 
them,  and  then  got  out  without  being  fished 
for.  Frank  would  get  into  trouble  sometimes, 

12 


Prologue 

no  doubt,  but  he  would  just  slip  in.  Now  it  was 
always  better  to  fall  than  to  slip.  You  got  less 
dirty,  and  were  less  time  about  it;  besides,  an 
honest  tumble  was  less  likely  to  give  you  a  bad 
sprain.  This  philosophic  lady  had  a  deep  belief 
in  the  discipline  of  circumstances,  and  was  dis- 
posed to  be  somewhat  more  than  lenient  towards 
any  one  passing  (not  unsoiled)  through  his  time 
of  probation  and  training.  Personally,  at  this 
time,  Frank  was  a  fair,  rather  short  boy,  with 
light  hair  and  grey  eyes,  usually  peaceable  and 
amiable  in  his  behaviour ;  his  sister,  tall,  brown, 
thin,  with  clear  features,  and  something  of  an 
abrupt  decisive  air  about  her.  They  had  few 
friends,  and  saw  little  company ;  Captain  Hare- 
.wood,  who  in  former  days  had  been  rather  an 
intimate  of  John  Cheyne's,  hardly  ever  now  rode 
over  to  see  his  ex-friend;  not  that  he  had  any 
quarrel  with  the  uncle  of  his  divorced  wife,  but 
he  now  scarcely  ever  stirred  out  or  sought  any 
company  beyond  a  few  professional  men  of  his 
own  stamp  and  a  clergyman  or  two,  having 
lately  taken  up  with  a  rather  acrid  and  dolorous 
kind  of  religion.  Lady  Midhurst,  one  regrets  to 
say,  asserted  that  her  enemy  made  a  mere  pre- 
tence of  austerity  in  principle,  and  spent  his 
time,  under  cover  of  seclusion,  in  the  voluptuous 
pastime  of  torturing  his  unlucky  boy  and  all  his 
miserable  subordinates.  "  The  man  was  always 

13 


Love's    Cross-currents 

one  of  those  horrid  people  who  cannot  live  with- 
out giving  pain ;  she  remembered  he  was  famous 
for  cruelty  in  his  profession,  and  certainly  he 
had  always  been  the  most  naturally  cruel  and 
spiteful  man  she  ever  knew;  she  had  not  an 
atom  of  doubt  he  really  had  some  physical 
pleasure  in  the  idea  of  others'  sufferings;  that 
was  the  only  way  to  explain  the  whole  course  of 
his  life  and  conduct."  Once  launched  on  the 
philosophy  of  this  subject,  Lady  Midhurst  went 
on  to  quote  instances  of  a  like  taste  from  history 
and  tradition.  As  to  the  unfortunate  Captain 
Harewood,  nothing  could  be  falser  than  such  an 
imputation;  he  was  merely  a  grave,  dry,  shy, 
soured  man,  severe  and  sincere  in  his  sorrowful 
distaste  for  company.  Perhaps  he  did  enjoy 
his  own  severity  and  moroseness,  and  had  some 
occult  pleasure  in  the  sense  that  his  son  was 
being  trained  up  sharply  and  warily ;  but  did  not 
a  boy  with  such  blood  in  his  veins  need  it  ? 

Thus  there  was  one  source  of  company  cut 
off,  for  the  first  years  of  their  life,  from  the 
young  Cheynes.  The  only  companion  they  were 
usually  sure  of  was  not  much  to  count  on  in  the 
way  of  amusement,  being  a  large,  heavy,  soli- 
tary boy  of  sixteen  or  more,  a  son  of  their  neigh- 
bour on  the  left — Mr.  Rad worth,  of  Blocksham. 
These  Radworths  were  allies  of  old  Lord 
Cheyne's,  who  had  a  great  belief  in  the  youth's 

14 


Prologue 

genius  and  promise.  He  had  developed,  when 
quite  young,  a  singular  taste  and  aptitude  for 
science,  abstract  and  mechanical;  had  carried 
on  this  study  at  school  in  the  teeth  of  his  tutors 
and  in  defiance  of  his  school-fellows,  keeping 
well  aloof  from  all  other  learning  and  taking 
little  or  no  rest  or  relaxation.  His  knowledge 
and  working  power  were  wonderful ;  but  he  was 
a  slow,  unlovely,  weighty,  dumb,  grim  sort  of 
fellow,  and  had  already  overtasked  his  brain 
and  nerves,  besides  ruining  his  eyes.  He  never 
went  anywhere  but  to  the  Cheynes',  and  there 
used  to  pay  a  dull  puzzled  homage  to  the  girl, 
who  set  very  light  by  him.  There  was  always  a 
strong  flavour  of  the  pedant  and  the  philistin 
about  Ernest  Radworth,  which  his  juniors  were 
of  course  quick  enough  to  appreciate. 

Mr.  John  Cheyne,  though  on  very  fair  terms 
with  his  sister,  did  not  visit  the  Stanfords ;  he 
had  never  seen  his  niece  since  the  time  of  the 
divorce;  Lady  Midhurst  was  the  only  member 
of  the  household  at  Ashton  Hildred  who  ever 
came  across  to  his  place.  The  two  children 
hardly  knew  the  name  of  their  small  second 
cousin,  Amicia  Stanford ;  she  was  a  year  younger 
than  Frank  Cheyne,  and  the  petted  pupil  of  her 
grandmother.  Mrs.  Stanford,  a  gentle  hand- 
some woman,  placid  and  rather  shy  in  her 
manner,  gave  the  child  up  wholly  to  the  elder 


Love's   Cross-currents 

lady's  care,  and  spent  her  days  chiefly  in  a 
soft  sleepy  kind  of  housekeeping.  A  moral  ob- 
server would  have  deplored  the  evident  quiet 
happiness  of  her  life.  She  never  thought  at  all 
about  her  first  husband,  or  the  three  years  of 
her  life  which  Lady  Midhurst  used  to  call  her 
pre-Stanford  period,  except  on  those  occasions 
when  her  mother  broke  out  with  some  fierce 
reference  to  Captain  Harewood,  or  some  angry 
expression  of  fondness  for  his  son.  Then  Mrs. 
Stanford  would  cry  a  little,  in  a  dispassionate 
graceful  manner ;  no  doubt  she  felt  at  times  some 
bitter  tender  desire  and  regret  towards  the  first 
of  her  children,  gave  way  between  whiles  to 
some  unprofitable  memory  of  him,  small  sorrows 
that  had  not  heart  enough  in  them  to  last  long. 
At  one  time,  perhaps,  she  had  wept  away  all  the 
tears  she  had  in  her ;  one  may  doubt  if  there  ever 
had  been  a  great  store  of  them  for  grief  to  draw 
upon.  She  was  of  a  delicate  impressible  nature, 
but  not  fashioned  so  as  to  suffer  sharply  for  long 
together.  If  there  came  any  sorrow  in  her  way 
she  dropped  down  (so  to  speak)  at  the  feet  of  it, 
and  bathed  them  in  tears  till  it  took  pity  on  her 
tender  beauty  and  passed  by  on  the  other  side 
without  doing  her  much  harm.  She  was  quite 
unheroic  and  rather  unmaternal,  but  pleasantly 
and  happily  put  together,  kind,  amiable,  and 
very  beautiful;  and  as  fond  as  she  could  ever 

16 


Prologue 

be,  not  only  of  herself,  but  also  of  her  husband, 
her  mother,  and  her  daughter.  The  husband 
was  a  good  sort  of  man,  always  deep  in  love  of 
his  wife  and  admiration  of  her  mother;  never 
conspicuous  for  any  event  in  his  life  but  that 
elopement;  and  how  matters  even  then  had 
come  to  a  crisis  between  two  such  lovers  as  they 
were,  probably  only  one  person  on  earth  could 
have  told;  and  this  third  person  certainly  was 
not  the  bereaved  captain.  The  daughter  was 
from  her  birth  of  that  rare  and  singular  beauty 
which  never  changes  for  the  worse  in  growing 
older.  She  was  one  of  the  few  girls  who  have 
no  ugly  time.  In  this  spring  of  1849  she  was 
the  most  perfect  child  of  eight  that  can  be 
imagined.  There  was  a  strange  grave  beauty 
and  faultless  grace  about  her,  more  noticeable 
than  the  more  usual  points  of  childish  pretti- 
ness:  pureness  of  feature,  ample  brilliant  hair, 
perfect  little  lips,  serious  and  rounded  in  shape, 
and  wonderful  unripe  beauty  of  chin  and  throat. 
Her  grandmother,  who  was  fond  of  French 
phrases  when  excited  or  especially  affectionate 
(a  trick  derived  from  recollections  of  her  own 
French  mother  and  early  friends  among  French 
relatives — she  had  a  way  of  saying,  "Hein?" 
and  glancing  up  or  sideways  with  an  eye  at  once 
birdlike  and  feline),  asserted  that  "Amy  was 
faite  a  peindre — faite  a  croquer — faite  a  manger 

17 


Love's   Cross-currents 

de  baisers."  The  old  life- worn  philosophic  lady 
seemed  absolutely  to  riot  and  revel  in  her  fond- 
ness for  the  child.  There  was  always  a  certain 
amiably  cynical  side  to  her  affections,  which 
showed  itself  by  and  by  in  the  girl's  training ;  but 
the  delight  and  love  aroused  in  her  at  the  sight 
of  her  pupil  were  as  true  and  tender  as  such 
emotions  could  be  in  such  a  woman.  Lady 
Midhurst  was  really  very  much  fonder  of  her 
two  grandchildren  than  of  any  one  else  alive. 
Redgie  was  just  her  sort  of  boy,  she  said,  and 
Amy  just  her  sort  of  girl.  It  would  have  been 
delicious  to  bring  them  up  together  (education, 
superintendence,  training  of  character,  guidance 
of  habit,  in  young  people,  were  passions  with 
the  excellent  lady);  and  if  the  boy's  father 
would  just  be  good  enough  to  come  to  some 
timely  end — .  She  had  been  godmother  to  both 
children,  and  both  were  as  fond  of  her  as 
possible.  "Enfin!"  she  said,  hopelessly. 


Ill 

THEY  were  to  have  enough  to  do  with  each 
other  in  later  life,  these  three  scattered  house- 
holds of  kinsfolk;  but  the  mixing  process  only 
began  on  a  late  spring  day  of  1849,  at  the  coun- 
try house  which  Mr.  John  Cheyne  had  inherit- 
ed from  his  wife.  This  was  a  little  old  house, 
beautifully  set  in  among  orchards  and  meadows, 
with  abundance  of  roses  now  all  round  it,  under 
the  heavy  leaves  of  a  spring  that  June  was  fast 
gaining  upon.  A  wide  soft  river  divided  the 
marsh  meadows  in  front  of  it,  full  of  yellow  flag- 
flowers  and  moist  fen -blossom.  Behind,  there 
slanted  upwards  a  small  broken  range  of  hills, 
the  bare  green  windy  lawns  of  them  dry  and 
fresh  under  foot,  thick  all  the  way  with  cowslips 
at  the  right  time.  It  was  a  splendid  place  for 
children;  better  perhaps  than  Ashton  Hildred 
with  its  huge  old  brick- walled  gardens  and  won- 
derful fruit-trees  blackened  and  dotted  with 
lumps  or  patches  of  fabulous  overgrown  moss, 
and  wild  pleasure-grounds  stifled  with  beautiful 
rank  grass ;  better  decidedly  than  Lord  Cheyne's 

19 


Love's   Cross-currents 

big  brilliant  Lidcombe,  in  spite  of  royal  shoot- 
ing-grounds and  the  admirable  slopes  of  high 
bright  hill-country  behind  it,  green  sweet  miles 
of  park  and  embayed  lake,  beyond  praise  for 
riding  and  boating;  better  incomparably  than 
Captain  Harewood's  place,  muffled  in  woods, 
with  a  grim  sad  beauty  of  its  own,  but  seemingly 
knee-deep  in  sere  leaves  all  the  year  round,  wet 
and  weedy  and  dark  and  deep  down,  kept  hold 
of  somehow  by  autumn  in  the  midst  of  spring; 
only  the  upper  half  of  it  clear  out  of  the  clutch 
of  winter  even  in  the  hottest  height  of  August 
weather,  with  a  bitter  flavour  of  frost  and  rain  in 
it  all  through  summer.  It  was  wonderful,  Lady 
Midhurst  said,  how  any  child  could  live  there 
without  going  mad  or  moping.  She  was  thank- 
ful the  boy  went  to  school  so  young,  though  no 
doubt  his  father  had  picked  out  the  very  hard- 
est sort  of  school  that  he  decently  could  select. 
Anything  was  better  than  that  horrid  wet  hole 
of  a  place,  up  to  the  nose  and  eyes  in  black  damp 
woods,  and  with  thick  moist  copses  of  alder  and 
birch-trees  growing  against  the  very  windows; 
and  such  a  set  of  people  inside  of  it !  She  used 
to  call  there  about  three  times  a  year,  during 
the  boy's  holidays ;  get  him  apart  from  his  father 
and  tutor,  and  give  him  presents  and  advice  and 
pity  and  encouragement  of  all  sorts,  mixed  with 
histories  of  his  mother  and  half-sister,  the  whole 

20 


Prologue 

spiced  not  sparingly  with  bitter  allusions  to  his 
father,  to  which  one  may  fear  there  was  some 
response  now  and  then  on  the  boy's  part. 

It  was  after  one  of  these  visits  that  Captain 
Harewood  first  brought  his  son  over  to  his  old 
friend's.  Perhaps  he  thought  at  length  that  the 
boy  might  as  well  see  some  one  about  his  own 
age  in  holiday-time.  Reginald  was  growing 
visibly  mutinous  and  hard  to  keep  down  by 
preachings  and  punishments;  had  begun  evi- 
dently to  wince  and  kick  under  the  domestic 
rod.  His  father  and  the  clerical  tutor  who  came 
over  daily  to  look  after  the  boy's  holiday  task 
could  hardly  keep  him  under  by  frequent 
flogging  and  much  serious  sorrowful  lecturing. 
He  was  not  a  specially  fast  boy,  only  about  as 
restless  and  insubordinate  as  most  fellows  at 
his  age;  but  this  was  far  more  than  his  father 
was  prepared  to  stand.  Let  him  see  some  one 
else  outside  home  than  Lady  Midhurst ;  it  would 
do  him  no  harm,  and  the  boy  was  always 
vicious,  and  jibbed  frightfully,  for  some  days 
after  his  grandmother's  visits.  So  before  the 
holidays  were  out  the  Captain  trotted  him  over 
to  make  friends  with  Mr.  Cheyne's  son.  The 
visit  was  a  matter  of  keen  and  rather  frightened 
interest  to  Frank.  Clara,  on  hearing  the  boy 
was  her  junior,  made  light  of  it,  and  was  out  of 
the  way  when  Captain  Harewood  came  in  with 

21 


Love's    Cross-currents 

his  son.  The  two  boys  eyed  each  other  curious- 
ly under  close  brows  and  with  lips  expressive  of 
a  grave  doubt  on  either  side.  The  visitor  was 
a  splendid-looking  fellow,  lithe  and  lightly  built, 
but  of  a  good  compact  make,  with  a  sunburnt 
oval  face,  and  hair  like  unspun  yellow  silk  in 
colour,  but  one  mass  of  short  rough  curls ;  eye- 
brows, eyes,  and  eyelashes  all  dark,  showing 
quaintly  enough  against  his  golden  hair  and 
bright  pale  skin.  His  mouth,  with  a  rather  full 
red  under  lip  for  a  child,  had  a  look  of  such  im- 
pudent and  wilful  beauty  as  to  suggest  at  once 
the  frequent  call  for  birch  in  such  a  boy's 
education.  His  eyes  too  had  a  defiant  laugh 
latent  under  the  lazy  light  in  them.  Rather 
well  got-up  for  the  rest  and  delicately  costumed, 
though  with  a  distinct  school  stamp  on  him,  but 
by  no  means  after  the  muscle-manful  type. 

This  boy  had  a  short  whip  in  one  hand,  which 
was  of  great  and  visible  comfort  to  him.  To 
switch  his  leg  in  a  reflective  measured  way  was 
an  action  at  once  impressive'  in  itself  and  likely 
to  meet  and  obviate  any  conversational  neces- 
sity that  might  turn  up.  No  smaller  boy  could 
accost  him  lightly  while  in  that  attitude. 

At  last,  with  a  gracious  gravity,  seeing  both 
elders  in  low-voiced  talk,  he  vouchsafed  five 
valuable  words:  "I  say,  what's  your  name?" 
Frank  gave  his  name  in  with  meekness,  having 

22 


Prologue 

a  just  sense  of  his  relative  insignificance.  He 
was  very  honest  and  easy  to  dazzle. 

"Mine's  Reginald — Reginald  Edward  Hare- 
wood.  It  doesn't  sound  at  all  well"  (this  with 
a  sententious  suppressed  flourish  in  his  voice  as 
of  one  who  blandly  deprecates  a  provoked  con- 
tradiction)— "no,  not  at  all;  because  there's 
such  a  lot  of '  D's '  in  it.  Yours  is  a  much  better 
name.  How  old  are  you?" 

The  abject  Frank  apologetically  suggested 
"Nine." 

"You  just  look  it,"  said  Reginald  Harewood, 
with  an  awful  calm,  indicative  of  a  well-ground- 
ed contempt  for  that  time  of  life,  restrained  for 
the  present  by  an  exquisite  sense  of  social  cour- 
tesy. "I'm  eleven — rising  twelve — eleven  last 
month.  Suppose  we  go  out?" 


IV 

ONCE  out  in  the  garden,  Reginald  became 
more  wonderful  than  ever.  Any  one  not  two 
years  younger,  and  half  a  head  shorter,  must 
have  doubled  up  with  laughter  before  he  had 
gone  three  steps.  Our  friend's  patronage  of 
the  sunlight,  his  tolerance  of  the  roses,  his  gen- 
tle thoughtful  condescension  towards  the  face 
of  things  in  general,  were  too  sublime  for 
words. 

When  they  came  to  the  parapet  of  an  old 
broad  terrace,  Reginald,  still  in  a  dignified  way, 
got  astride  it,  not  without  a  curious  grimace  and 
some  seeming  difficulty  in  adjusting  his  small 
person ;  tapped  his  teeth  with  his  whip-handle, 
and  gave  Frank  for  a  whole  minute  the  full 
benefit  of  his  eyes.  Frank  stood  twisting  a 
rose-branch,  and  looked  meek. 

The  result  of  Reginald's  scrutiny  was  this 
question,  delivered  with  much  solemn  effect. 

"  I  say.     Were  you  ever  swished?" 

"Swished?"  said  Frank,  with  a  rapid  heat  in 
his  cheeks. 

24 


Prologue 

"Swished,"  said  Reginald,  in  his  decided 
voice.  "Birched." 

"  Do  you  mean  flogged  ?" 

Frank  asked  this  very  diffidently,  and  as  if 
the  query  singed  his  lips. 

"Well,  flogged,  if  you  like  that  better,"  said 
Reginald,  conscious  of  a  neat  point.  "  Flogged. 
But  I  mean  a  real,  right-down  swishing,  you 
know.  If  a  fellow  says  flogged,  it  may  be  a 
whip,  don't  you  see,  or  a  strap.  That's  caddish. 
But  you  can  call  it  flogging,  if  you  like;  only 
not  at  school,  mind.  It's  all  very  well  before 
me." 

Reverting  from  these  verbal  subtleties  to  the 
main  point,  Reginald  put  the  grand  query  again 
in  a  modified  shape,  but  in  a  tone  of  courteous 
resolution,  not  to  be  evaded  by  any  boy. 

" Does  your  father  often  flog  you?" 

"  I  never  was  flogged  in  my  life,"  said  Frank, 
sensible  of  his  deep  degradation. 

Reginald,  as  a  boy  of  the  world,  could  stand  a 
good  deal  without  surprise;  experience  of  men 
and  things  had  inured  him  to  much  that  was 
.curious  and  out  of  the  usual  way.  But  at  the 
shock  of  this  monstrous  and  incredible  assertion 
he  was  thrown  right  off  his  balance.  He  got  off 
the  parapet,  leaned  his  shoulders  against  it,  and 
gazed  upon  the  boy,  to  whom  birch  was  a  dim 
dubious  myth,  a  jocose  threat  after  dinner,  with 

25 


Love's   Cross-currents 

eyebrows  wonderfully  high  up,  and  distended 
eyelids.  Then  he  said, — 

"Good — God!"  softly,  and  dividing  the  syl- 
lables with  hushed  breath. 

Goaded  to  insanity  by  the  big  boy's  astonish- 
ment, agonized  by  his  silence,  Frank  tenderly 
put  a  timid  foot  in  it. 

"Were  you?"  he  asked,  with  much  awe. 

Then,  with  straightened  shoulders  and  raised 
chin,  Reginald  Harewood  took  up  his  parable. 
Some  of  his  filial  expressions  must  be  forgiven 
to  youthful  excitement,  and  for  the  sake  of 
accuracy ;  boys,  when  voluble  on  a  tender  point, 
are  awfully  accurate  in  their  choice  of  words. 
Reginald  was  very  voluble  by  nature,  and  easy 
to  excite  on  this  painfully  personal  matter. 

"  Ah,  yes,  I  should  think  so.  My  good  fellow, 
you  ought  to  have  seen  me  yesterday.  I  was 
swished  twice  in  the  morning.  Gan't  you  see  in 
a  man's  eyes?  My  father  is  —  the  —  most  — 
— awful — Turk.  He  likes  to  swish  me — he  does 
really.  What  you'll  do  when  you  get  to  school" 
(here  a  pause),  "God  knows."  (This  in  a 
pensive  and  devout  manner,  touched  with  pity.) 
"You'll  sing  out — by  Jove! — won't  you  sing 
out  the  first  time  you  catch  it !  I  used  to — I  do 
sometimes  now.  For  it  hurts  most  awfully. 
But  I  can  stand  a  good  lot  of  it.  My  father  can 
always  draw  blood  at  the  third  or  fourth  cut. 

26 


Prologue 

It's  just  like  a  swarm  of  mad  bees  stinging  you 
at  once.  At  school,  if  you  kick,  or  if  you  wince 
even,  or  if  you  make  the  least  bit  of  row,  you  get 
three  cuts  over.  I  always  did  when  I  was  your 
age.  The  fellows  used  to  call  me  all  manner  of 
chaffy  names.  Not  the  young  ones,  of  course ; 
I  should  lick  them.  I  say,  I  wish  you  were  go- 
ing to  school.  You'd  be  letting  fellows  get  you 
into  the  most  awful  rows — ah!  wouldn't  you? 
When  I  was  your  age  I  used  to  get  swished  twice 
a  week  regular.  The  masters  spite  me.  I  know 
one  of  them  does,  because  he  told  one  of  the  big 
fellows  he  did.  At  least  he  said  I  was  a  curse  to 
my  division,  and  I  was  ruining  all  the  young 
ones.  He  did  really,  on  my  word.  I  was  the 
fellow's  fag  that  he  said  it  to,  and  he  called  me 
up  that  night  and  licked  me  with  a  whip ;  with  a 
whip  like  this.  He  was  a  most  awful  bully.  I 
don't  think  I'll  tell  you  what  he  did  once  to  a 
boy.  You  wouldn't  sleep  well  to-night." 

"  Oh,  do !"  said  Frank,  quivering.  The  terrific 
interest  of  Reginald's  confidences  suspended  his 
heart  at  his  lips ;  he  beheld  the  Complete  School- 
boy with  a  breathless  reverence.  As  for  pity,  he 
would  as  soon  have  ventured  to  pity  a  crowned 
head. 

"  No,"  said  the  boy  of  the  world,  shaking  con- 
siderate curls;  "I  won't  tell  a  little  fellow,  I 
think;  it's  a  shame  to  go  and  put  them  in  a 

27 


Love's    Cross-currents 

funk.  Some  fellows  are  always  trying  it  on, 
for  a  spree.  I  never  do.  No,  my  good  fellow, 
you'd  better  not  ask  me.  You  had  really." 

Reginald  sucked  his  whip-handle  with  a  relish, 
and  eyed  the  universe  in  a  conscious  way. 

"  Do,  please,"  pleaded  the  younger.  "  I  don't 
mind;  I've  heard  of — that  is,  I've  read  of — all 
kinds  of  awful  things.  I  don't  care  about  them 
the  least  bit." 

"Well,  young  one,"  said  Reginald,  "don't 
blame  me  then,  that's  all,  if  you  have  bad 
dreams.  There  was  one  fellow  ran  away  from 
school  when  he  heard  of  it — on  my  word."  And 
Reginald  proceeded  to  recite  certain  episodes — 
apocryphal  or  canonical — from  the  life  of  a  lower 
boy,  giving  the  details  with  a  dreadful  unction. 
No  description  can  express  the  full  fleshy  sound 
of  certain  words  in  his  mouth.  He  talked  of 
"  cuts  "  with  quite  a  liquorish  accent,  and  gave 
the  technical  word  "swish"  with  a  twang  in 
which  the  hissing  sound  of  a  falling  birch  be- 
came sharply  audible.  The  boy  was  immeas- 
urably proud  of  his  floggings,  and  relished  the 
subject  of  flagellation  as  few  men  relish  rare 
wine.  As  for  shame,  he  had  never  for  a  second 
thought  of  it.  A  flogging  was  an  affair  of 
honour  to  him ;  if  he  came  off  without  tears, 
although  with  loss  of  blood,  he  regarded  the 
master  with  chivalrous  pity,  as  a  brave  enemy 

28 


Prologue 

worsted.  A  real  tormentor  always  revelled  in 
the  punishment  of  Reginald.  Those  who  plied 
the  birch  with  true  loving  delight  in  the  use 
of  it  enjoyed  whipping  such  a  boy  intensely. 
Orbilius  would  have  feasted  on  his  flesh — dined 
off  him. 

He  looked  Frank  between  the  eyes  as  he 
finished  and  gave  a  great  shrug. 

"  I  said  you'd  better  not.  You  look  blue  and 
green,  upon  my  honour  you  do.  It's  your  fault, 
my  good  fellow.  I'm  very  sorry.  I  know  some 
fellows  can't  stand  things.  I  knew  you  couldn't 
by  the  look  of  your  eyes.  I  could  have  taken 
my  oath  of  it.  It  isn't  in  you.  It's  not  your 
fault;  I  dare  say  you've  no  end  of  pluck,  but 
you're  nervous,  don't  you  see?  I  don't  mean 
you  funk  exactly;  things  disagree  with  you — 
that's  it." 

Here  Reginald  strangled  a  discourteous  and 
compromising  chuckle,  and  gave  himself  a  cut 
with  his  whip  that  made  his  junior  wink. 

"Ah,  now,  you  see,  that  makes  you  wince. 
Now,  look  here,  you  just  take  hold  of  that  whip 
and  give  me  a  cut  as  hard  as  you  possibly  can. 
You  just  do  that.  I  should  like  it.  Do,  there's 
a  good  fellow.  I  want  to  see  if  you  could  hurt 
me.  Hit  hard,  mind.  Now  then,"  and  he  pre- 
sented a  bending  broadside  to  the  shot. 

The  trodden  worm  turned  and  stung.  Driven 
29 


Love's   Cross-currents 

mad  by  patronage,  and  all  the  more  savage  be- 
cause of  his  deep  admiration,  Frank  could  not 
let  the  chance  slip.  He  took  sharp  aim,  set  his 
teeth,  and,  swinging  all  his  body  round  with  the 
force  of  the  blow  as  he  dealt  it,  brought  down 
the  whip  on  the  tightest  part  he  could  pick  out, 
with  a  vicious  vigour  and  stinging  skill. 

He  had  a  moment's  sip  of  pure  honey ;  Regi- 
nald jumped  a  foot  high,  and  yelled. 

But  in  another  minute,  before  Frank  had  got 
his  breath  again,  the  boy  turned  round,  rubbing 
hard  with  one  hand,  patted  him,  and  delivered 
a  "Well  done!"  more  stinging  than  a  dozen 
cuts.  Frank  succumbed. 

"I  say,  just  let  me  feel  your  muscle,"  said 
Reginald,  passing  scientific  finger-tips  up  the 
arm  of  his  companion.  "Ah,  very  good  muscle 
you've  got;  you  ought  just  to  keep  it  up,  you 
see,  and  you'll  do  splendidly.  Bend  your  arm 
up;  so.  I'll  tell  you  what  now;  you  ought  to 
make  no  end  of  a  good  hitter  in  time.  But  you 
wouldn't  have  hurt  me  a  bit  if  I  hadn't  come  to 
such  grief  yesterday.  It  was  a  jolly  good  rod, 
and  quite  fresh,  with  no  end  of  buds  on ;  but  you 
see  you  can't  understand.  Of  course  you  can't. 
Then,  you  see,  there  was  the  ride  over  here. 
Riding  doesn't  usually  make  me  lose  leather; 
but  to-day,  you  know — that  is,  you  don't  know, 
But  you  will." 

30 


Prologue 

Reginald  gave  a  pathetic  nod,  indicative  of 
untold  horrors. 

Frank  had  begun  a  meek  excuse,  which  was 
cut  short  with  imperious  grace. 

"My  dear  fellow,  don't  bother  yourself.  I 
don't  mind.  You'll  have  to  learn  how  to  stand 
a  cut  before  you  leave  home;  or  the  first  time 
you're  sent  up,  -by  Jove !  how  you  will  squeak ! 
There  was  a  fellow  like  you  last  half  (Audley  his 
name  was),  who  had  never  been  flogged  till  he 
came  to  school;  he  was  a  nice  sort  of  fellow 
enough,  but  when  they  told  him  to  go  down — 
look  here,  he  went  in  this  way."  And  Reginald 
proceeded  to  enact  the  whole  scene,  making  an 
inoffensive  laurel-bush  represent  the  flagellated 
novice,  whose  yells  and  contortions  he  rendered 
with  fearful  effect,  plying  his  whip  vigorously 
between  whiles,  till  a  rain  of  gashed  leaves  in- 
undated the  gravel,  and  giving  at  the  same  time 
vocal  imitations  of  the  swish  of  the  absent  birch- 
twigs  and  the  voice  of  the  officiating  master, 
as  it  fulminated  words  of  objurgation  and  jocose 
contumely  at  every  other  cut.  The  vivid  por- 
traiture of  the  awful  thing  and  Redgie's  sub- 
sequent description  (too  graphic  and  terrible  in 
its  naked  realism  to  be  reproduced)  of  the  cul- 
prit's subsequent  appearance  and  demeanour, 
and  of  his  usage  at  the  hands  of  indignant 
school-boys,  whose  sense  of  propriety  his  base 


Love's   Cross-currents 

behaviour  under  punishment  had  outraged  in  its 
tenderest  part,  all  this  made  the  youthful  hear- 
er's blood  shiver  deliciously,  and  his  nerves 
tingle  with  a  tremulous  sympathy.  He  was 
grateful  for  this  experience,  and  felt  older  than 
five  minutes  since.  Reginald,  too,  remarking 
and  relishing  the  impression  made,  felt  kindly 
towards  his  junior,  and  promised,  by  implication, 
a  continuance  of  his  patronage. 

When  they  went  in  to  luncheon,  Redgie 
examined  his  friend's  sister  with  the  acute  eyes 
of  a  boy  of  the  world,  and  evidently  approved 
of  her;  became,  indeed,  quite  subdued,  "lowly 
and  serviceable,"  on  finding  that  thirteen  took 
a  high  tone  with  eleven,  and  was  not  prepared 
to  permit  advances  on  an  equal  footing.  Frank, 
meantime,  was  scrutinizing  under  timid  eyelids 
the  awful  Captain  Hare  wood,  in  whose  hand  the 
eye  of  his  fancy  saw,  instead  of  knife  and  fork, 
a  lifted  birch,  the  twigs  worn  and  frayed,  and 
spotted  with  filial  blood. 

Redgie 's  father  was  thirty-eight  that  year, 
nine  years  older  than  his  ex-wife,  but  looking 
much  more.  Mrs.  Stanford  had  a  fresh  equable 
beauty  which  might  have  suited  a  woman  ten 
years  younger.  The  Captain  was  a  handsome 
tall  man,  square  in  build,  with  a  hard  forehead ; 
the  black  eyes  and  eyebrows  he  had  bequeathed 
to  his  son,  but  softened;  his  own  eyes  were 

32 


Prologue 

metallic,  and  the  brows  heavy,  shaggy  even.  He 
had  a  hard  mouth,  with  large  locked  lips;  a 
tight  chin,  a  full  smooth  moustache,  and  a  wide 
cheek,  already  furrowed  and  sad-looking.  Some- 
thing of  a  despot's  justice  in  the  look  of  him,  and 
something  of  bitter  doubt  and  regret.  His  host, 
a  man  twelve  years  older,  had  worn  much  better 
than  he  had. 

When  the  boys  were  again  by  themselves, 
Redgie  was  pleased  to  express  his  sense  of  the 
merits  of  Frank's  sister;  a  tribute  gratefully 
accepted.  Clara  was  stunning  for  a  girl,  her 
brother  added — but  was  cautious  of  over-prais- 
ing her. 

"I've  got  a  sister,"  Reginald  stated;  "I  be- 
lieve she's  a  clipper,  but  I  don't  know.  Oh,  I 
say,  isn't  my  grandmother  an  aunt  of  yours  or 
something?" 

"Aunt  Helena?"  said  her  nephew,  who  held 
her  in  a  certain  not  unfriendly  awe. 

"That's  her,"  said  Redgie,  using  a  grammati- 
cal construction  which,  occurring  in  a  Latin 
theme,  would  have  brought  down  birch  on  his 
bare  skin  to  a  certainty.  "Isn't  she  a  brick? 
I  think  she's  the  greatest  I  know — that's  about 
what  she  is." 

Frank  admitted  she  was  kind. 

"  Kind  ?  I  should  think  she  was,  too.  She's 
a  trump.  But  do  you  know  she  hates  my  gov- 
33 


Love's   Cross-currents 

ernor  like  mad.  They  hardly  speak  when  she 
comes  to  our  crib.  Last  time  she  came  she  gave 
me  a  fiver ;  she  did  really. ' '  (Redgie  at  that  age 
wanted  usually  some  time  to  get  up  his  slang  in, 
but  when  it  once  began,  he  was  great  at  it,  con- 
sidering he  had  never  got  into  a  very  slang  set.) 
"  Well,  she  says  my  sister  is  no  end  of  a  good  one 
to  look  at  by  this  time ;  but  I  think  yours  must 
be  the  jolliest.  I've  known  lots  of  girls"  (the 
implied  reticence  of  accent  was,  as  Lady  Mid- 
hurst  would  have  said,  impayable),  "  but  I  never 
saw  such  a  stunner  as  she  is.  She  makes  a 
fellow  feel  quite  shut  up  and  spooney." 

This  amorous  confidence  was  brought  up  short 
by  the  sudden  advent  of  the  two  fathers.  Meet- 
ing the  eye  of  his,  Redgie  felt. his  fate,  and  tin- 
gled with  the  anticipated  smart  of  it.  All  his 
last  speech  had  too  clearly  dropped  word  by 
word  into  the  paternal  ear;  the  wretched  boy's 
face  reddened  with  biting  blushes  to  the  very 
chin  and  eyelids  and  hair.  When  some  twenty 
minutes  later  they  parted  at  the  hall-door, 
Redgie  gave  his  friend  a  pitiful  private  wink  and 
sadly  comic  shrug,  so  suggestive  of  his  impend- 
ing doom  and  the  inevitable  ceremony  to  be  gone 
through  when  he  reached  home  again  that 
Frank,  having  seen  him  ride  off  quite  silently  a 
little  behind  his  father,  turned  back  into  the 
house  with  his  own  flesh  quivering,  and  a  fearful 

34 


Prologue 

vague  vision  before  his  eyes  of  Reginald  some 
hours  later  twisting  his  bared  limbs  under  the 
torture. 

He  was  eager  to  gather  the  household  verdict 
on  his  friend;  but  Reginald  had  scarcely  made 
much  of  a  success  in  other  quarters.  Clara 
thought  him  silly  and  young  of  his  age  (a  verdict 
which  would  have  finished  him  at  once  if  he  had 
known  of  it),  but  admitted  he  was  a  handsome 
boy,  much  prettier  and  pleasanter  to  have  near 
one  than  Ernest  Radworth.  Mr.  Cheyne  was 
sorry  for  the  boy,  but  could  hardly  put  up  with 
such  a  sample  of  the  new  race.  Redgie's  conceit 
and  gracious  impudence  (though  it  was  not 
really  a  case  of  bad  tone,  he  allowed)  had  evi- 
dently been  too  much  for  him.  The  Captain, 
too,  had  expressed  uneasiness  about  his  boy, 
and  a  sense  of  vexatious  outlooks  ahead. 

After  all  there  grew  up  no  great  intimacy 
out  of  this  first  visit ;  a  mere  childish  interlude, 
which  seemingly  had  but  just  result  enough  to 
establish  a  certain  tie  at  school  afterwards  be- 
tween young  Cheyne  and  his  second  cousin — 
a  tie  considerably  broken  in  upon  by  various 
squabbles,  and  strained  often  almost  to  snap- 
ping; but,  for  all  that,  the  visit  had  left  its  mark 
on  both  sides,  and  had  its  consequences. 


WE  have  taken  a  flying  view  of  these  domestic 
affairs  and  the  people  involved  in  them,  as  they 
stood  twelve  years  or  so  before  the  date  of  the 
ensuing  correspondence.  Something  may  now 
be  understood  of  the  characters  and  positions  of 
the  writers;  enough,  no  doubt,  to  make  the  let- 
ters comprehensible  without  interloping  notes 
or  commentaries.  Much  incident  is  not  here  to 
be  looked  for ;  what  story  there  is  to  tell  ought  at 
least  to  be  given  with  clearness  and  coherence. 
There  remains  only  by  way  of  preface  to  sum  up 
the  changes  that  fell  out  between  1849  and  1861 . 

At  the  latter  date  two  deaths  and  two  mar- 
riages had  taken  place ;  old  Lord  Cheyne,  much 
bewept  by  earnest  and  virtuous  men  of  all  class- 
es, had  died,  laborious  to  the  last  in  the  great 
cause  of  human  improvement,  and  his  son,  a 
good  deal  sobered  by  the  lapse  of  time  and 
friction  of  accident,  had  married,  in  May,  1859, 
within  a  year  of  his  accession  as  aforesaid,  his 
cousin  Mrs.  Stanford's  daughter;  she  was  mar- 
ried on  her  eighteenth  birthday,  and  there  was 

36 


Prologue 

no  great  ado  made  about  it.  John  Cheyne  had 
died  a  year  before  his  brother,  having  lived 
long  enough  to  see  his  daughter  well  married,  in 
1857,  to  Mr.  Ernest  Radworth,  whose  fame  as  a 
man  of  science  had  gone  on  increasing  ever  since 
he  came  into  his  property  in  1853,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one.  His  researches  in  osteology  were  of 
especial  value  and  interest ;  he  was  in  all  ways  a 
man  of  great  provincial  mark. 

There  is  not  much  else  to  say;  unless  it  may 
be  worth  adding  that  Francis  Cheyne  was  at 
college  by  this  time,  with  an  eye  to  the  bar  in 
years  to  come;  his  father's  property  had  been 
much  cut  into  by  the  share  assigned  to  his  sister, 
and  there  was  just  a  fair  competence  left  him 
to  start  upon.  When  not  at  Oxford,  he  lived 
usually  at  Lidcombe  or  at  Blocksham,  seldom 
by  himself  at  home ;  but  had  for  some  little  time 
past  shown  a  distinct  preference  of  his  cousin's 
house  to  his  brother-in-law's,  Lord  Cheyne  and 
he  being  always  on  the  pleasantest  terms.  With 
this  cousin,  eighteen  years  older  than  himself, 
he  got  on  now  much  better  than  with  his  old 
companion  Reginald  Harewood,  whose  Oxford 
career  had  just  ended  in  the  passing  over  his 
hapless  head  of  the  untimely  plough,  and  whose 
friends,  all  but  Lady  Midhurst,  had  pretty  well 
washed  their  hands  of  him. 
*  37 


A  Year's   Letters 

i 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

Ashton  Hildred,  Jan.  I2lh,  '61. 

MY  DEAR  NIECE: 

I  WRITE  to  beg  a  favour  of  you,  and  you  are 
decidedly  the  one  woman  alive  I  could  ask  it 
of.  There  is  no  question  of  me  in  the  matter, 
I  assure  you;  I  know  how  little  you  owe  to  a 
foolish  old  aunt,  and  would  on  no  account  tax 
your  forbearance  so  far  as  to  assume  the  very 
least  air  of  dictation.  You  will  hardly  re- 
member what  good  friends  we  used  to  be  when 
you  were  a  very  small  member  of  society  indeed. 
If  I  ever  tried  then  to  coax  you  into  making  it 
up  with  your  brother  after  some  baby  dispute,  I 
recollect  I  always  broke  down  in  a  lamentable 
way.  The  one  chance  at  that  time  was  to  put 
the  thing  before  you  on  rational  grounds.  I  am 
trying  to  act  on  that  experience  now. 

39 


Love's   Cross-currents 

This  is  rather  a  stupid  grand  sort  of  beginning, 
when  all  I  really  have  to  say  is  that  I  want  to  see 
the  whole  family  on  comfortable  terms  again— 
especially  to  make  you  and  Amicia  friends.  For 
you  know  it  is  hopeless  to  persuade  an  old  wom- 
an who  is  not  quite  in  her  dotage  that  there 
has  not  been  a  certain  coldness — say  coolness— 
of  late  in  the  relations  between  you  and  those 
Lidcombe  people.  Since  my  poor  brother's 
death,  no  doubt,  the  place  has  not  had  those 
attractions  for  Mr.  Radworth  which  it  had  when 
there  was  always  some  scientific  or  philanthrop- 
ic gathering  there ;  indeed,  I  suppose  your  house 
has  supplanted  Lidcombe  as  the  rally  ing-point 
of  provincial  science  for  miles.  By  all  I  hear  you 
are  becoming  quite  eminent  in  that  line,  and  it 
must  be  delicious  for  you  personally  to  see  how 
thoroughly  your  husband  begins  to  be  appreci- 
ated. I  quite  envy  you  the  society  you  must 
see,  and  the  pleasure  you  must  take  in  seeing 
and  sharing  Mr.  Radworth's  enjoyment  of  it.  (I 
trust  his  sight  is  improving  steadily.)  But  for 
all  this  you  should  not  quite  cast  off  less  fort- 
unate people  who  have  not  the  same  tastes  and 
pursuits.  You  and  Cheyne  were  once  so  com- 
fortable and  intimate  that  I  am  certain  he  must 
frequently  regret  this  change;  and  Amicia,  as 
you  know,  sets  far  more  store  by  you  than  any 
other  friend  she  could  have  about  her.  Do  be 

40 


A    Year's    Letters 

prevailed  upon  to  take  pity  on  the  poor  child: 
her  husband  is  a  delightful  one,  and  most  eager 
to  amuse  and  gratify,  but  I  know  she  wants  a 
companion.  At  her  age,  my  dear,  I  could  not 
have  lived  without  one;  and  at  yours,  if  you 
were  not  such  a  philosopher,  you  ought  to 
be  as  unable  as  I  was.  Men  have  their  uses  and 
their  merits,  I  allow,  but  you  cannot  live  on 
them.  My  friend,  by-the-by,  was  not  a  good  in- 
stance to  cite,  for  she  played  me  a  fearful  trick 
once ;  Lady  Wells  her  name  was ;  I  had  to  give 
her  up  in  the  long  run;  but  she  was  charming 
at  one  time,  wonderfully  bright  in  her  ways,  at 
once  quick  and  soft,  as  it  were — just  my  idea  of 
Madame  de  Le"ry,  in  "Un  Caprice."  She  was 
idolized  by  all  sorts  of  people,  authors  particu- 
larly, for  she  used  to  hunt  them  down  with  a 
splendid  skill,  and  make  great  play  with  them 
when  caught ;  but  the  things  the  woman  used  to 
say !  and  then  the  people  about  her  went  off  and 
set  them  all  down  in  their  books.  The  men  act- 
ually took  her  stories  as  samples  of  what  went 
on  daily  in  a  certain  circle,  and  wrote  them 
down,  altering  the  names,  as  if  they  had  been 
gospel.  She  told  me  some  before  they  got  into 
print ;  there  was  nobody  she  would  not  mix  up 
in  them,  and  we  had  to  break  with  her  at  last  in 
a  peaceable  way.  If  you  ever  see  an  old  novel 
called  (I  think)  "Vingt-et-Un,"  or  some  such 


Love's   Cross-currents 

name — I  know  there  are  cards  in  it — you  will 
find  a  picture  there  of  your  aunt,  painted  by 
the  author  (a  Mr.  Caddell)  after  a  design  by 
Lady  Wells.  I  am  the  Lady  Manhurst  of  that 
nice  book.  I  cheat  at  cards ;  I  break  the  heart 
of  a  rising  poet  (that  is,  I  never  would  let  Sir 
Thomas  invite  Mr.  Caddell) ;  and  I  make  two 
brothers  fight  a  duel,  and  one  is  killed  through 
my  direct  agency.  I  run  away  with  a  Lord 
Avery;  I  am  not  certain  that  my  husband  dies 
a  natural  death ;  I  rather  think,  indeed,  that  I 
poison  him  in  the  last  chapter  but  one.  Finally, 
I  become  a  Catholic ;  and  Lord  Avery  recognizes 
me  in  the  conventual  garb,  the  day  after  my 
noviciate  is  out,  and  immediately  takes  leave 
of  his  senses.  I  hope  I  died  penitent;  but  I 
really  forget  about  that.  You  see  what  sort  of 
things  one  could  make  people  believe  in  those 
days;  I  suppose  there  is  no  fear  of  a  liaison 
dangereuse  of  that  sort  between  you  and  poor 
little  Amicia.  She  has  not  much  of  the  Lady 
Wells  type  in  her. 

I  have  a  graver  reason,  as  you  probably 
imagine  by  this  time,  for  wishing  you  to  see  a 
little  of  Amicia  just  now.  It  is  rather  difficult  to 
write  about,  but  I  am  sure  you  will  see  things 
better  for  yourself  than  I  could  make  you  if  I 
were  to  scribble  for  ever  in  this  cautious  round- 
about way ;  and  I  can  trust  so  thoroughly  in  your 

4* 


A   Year's    Letters 

good  feeling  and  good  sense  and  acuteness,  that 
I  know  you  will  do  what  is  right  and  useful  and 
honourable.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  know  of  any- 
body who  has  a  head  that  can  be  relied  upon. 
Good  hearts  and  good  feelings  are  easy  to  pick 
up,  but  a  good  clear  sensible  head  is  a  godsend. 
Nothing  else  could  ever  get  us  through  this  little 
family  business  in  reasonable  quiet. 

I  fear  you  must  have  heard  some  absurd 
running  rumours  about  your  brother's  last  stay 
at  Lidcombe.  People  who  always  see  what 
never  exists  are  beginning  to  talk  of  his  de- 
votion to  poor  dear  Amicia.  Now  I  of  course 
know,  and  you  of  course  know,  that  there  never 
could  be  anything  serious  on  foot  in  such  a 
quarter.  The  boy  is  hardly  of  age,  and  might 
be  at  school  as  far  as  that  goes.  Besides, 
Cheyne  and  Amicia  are  devoted  to  each  other, 
as  we  all  see.  My  only  fear  would  be  for  poor 
Frank  himself.  If  he  did  get  any  folly  of  a 
certain  kind  into  his  head  it  might  cause  in- 
finite personal  trouble,  and  give  serious  pain 
to  more  people  than  one.  I  have  seen  more 
than  once  how  much  real  harm  can  come  out  of 
such  things.  I  wonder  if  you  ever  heard  your 
poor  father  speak  of  Mrs.  Askew,  Walter  Askew's 
wife,  who  was  a  great  beauty,  in  our  time  ?  Both 
my  brothers  used  to  rave  about  her;  she  had 
features  of  that  pure  long  type  you  get  in 

43 


Love's   Cross-currents 

pictures,  and  eyes  that  were  certainly  ntieux 
fendus  than  any  I  ever  saw,  dim  deep  grey,  half 
lighted  under  the  heaviest  eyelids,  with  a  sleepy 
sparkle  in  them:  faulty  in  her  carriage,  very; 
you  had  to  look  at  her  sitting  to  understand 
the  effect  she  used  to  make.  Her  husband  was 
very  fond  of  her,  and  a  cleverish  sort  of  man, 
but  too  light  and  lazy  to  do  all  he  should  have 
done.  Well,  a  Mr.  Chetwood,  the  son  of  a  very 
old  friend  of  mine  (they  used  to  live  here),  be- 
came infatuated  about  her.  Spent  days  and 
days  in  pursuit  of  her;  made  himself  a  perfect 
jest.  Everywhere  she  went  there  was  this 
wretched  man  hanging  on  at  her  heels.  They 
were  not  much  to  hang  on  to,  by-the-bye,  for 
she  had  horrid  feet.  To  this  day  I  believe  he 
never  got  anything  by  it;  if  the  woman  ever 
cared  for  anybody  in  her  life  it  was  your  father; 
but  Mr.  Askew  had  to  take  notice  of  it  at  last ; 
the  other  got  into  a  passion  and  insulted  him 
(I  am  afraid  they  were  both  over-excited — it 
was  after  one  of  my  husband's  huge  dinners, 
and  they  came  up  in  a  most  dreadful  state  of 
rage,  and  trying  to  behave  well,  with  their  faces 
actually  trembling  all  over  and  the  most  fearful 
eyes),  and  there  was  a  duel  and  the  husband 
was  killed,  and  Chetwood  had  to  fly  the  coun- 
try, people  made  it  out  such  a  bad  case,  and  he 
was  ruined — died  abroad  within  the  year;  he 
44 


A   Year's    Letters 

had  spent  all  his  money  before  the  last  business. 
The  woman  arterwards  married  Dean  Bain- 
bridge,  the  famous  Waterworth  preacher,  you 
know,  who  used  to  be  such  a  friend  of  my  friend 
Captain  Harewood's  for  the  last  year  or  two  of 
his  life;  he  had  buried  his  third  wife  by  that 
time;  Mrs.  A.  was  the  second.  He  was  a  de- 
testable man,  and  had  a  voice  exactly  like  a  cat 
with  a  bad  cold  in  the  head. 

Now  if  anything  of  this  sort  were  to  happen  to 
Francis  (not  that  I  am  afraid  of  my  two  nephews 
cutting  each  other's  throats — but  so  much  may 
happen  short  of  that),  it  is  just  the  kind  of  thing 
he  might  never  get  well  over.  He  and  Amy  are 
about  the  same  age,  I  think,  or  he  may  be  a  year 
older.  In  a  case  like  this,  of  amicable  intimacy 
between  two  persons,  one  married,  there  is  neces- 
sarily a  certain  floating  amount  of  ridicule  im- 
plied, even  where  there  is  nothing  more ;  and  the 
whole  of  this  ridicule  must  fall  in  the  long  run 
upon  the  elder  person  of  the  two.  I  am  not  sure, 
of  course,  that  there  is  any  ground  for  fear  just 
now,  but  to  avoid  the  least  chance  of  scandal, 
still  more  of  ridicule,  it  is  always  worth  while 
being  at  any  pains.  Nobody  knows  how  well 
worth  while  it  is  till  they  are  turned  of  thirty. 
Now  you  must  see,  supposing  there  is  anything 
in  this  unfortunate  report,  that  I  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  of  the  least  use.  Imagine  me  writing 
45 


Love's   Cross-currents 

to  that  poor  child  to  say  she  must  not  see  so 
much  of  her  cousin,  or  to  Frank  imploring  him 
to  spare  the  domestic  peace  of  Lidcombe!  It 
would  be  too  absurd  for  me  to  seem  as  if  I  saw 
or  heard  anything  of  the  matter.  A  screeching, 
cackling  grandmother,  running  round  the  yard 
with  all  her  frowsy  old  feathers  ruffled  at  the 
sight  of  such  a  miserable  red  rag  as  that,  would 
be  a  thing  to  laugh  at  for  a  year ;  and  I  have  no 
intention  of  helping  people  to  a  laugh  at  my 
white  hairs  (they  are  quite  white  now). 

Or  would  you  have  me  write  to  Cheyne  ?  La 
bonne  farce!  as  Redgie  Harewood  says,  since  he 
has  been  in  Paris.  Conceive  the  delicate  im- 
pressive way  one  would  have  to  begin  the  letter 
in,  so  as  not  to  arouse  the  dormant  serpents  in 
a  husband's  heart.  Think  of  the  soft  suggestive 
lago  style  one  would  have  to  adopt,  so  as  to  inti- 
mate the  awfullest  possibilities  without  any  hard 
flat  assertion.  Poor  good  Edmund  too,  of  all 
people!  Imagine  the  bewildered  way  in  which 
he  would  begin  the  part  of  Othello,  without  in 
the  least  knowing  how — without  so  much  as  an 
Ethiopian  dye  to  help  him  out !  You  must  allow 
that  in  writing  to  you  I  have  done  all  I  could ; 
more,  I  do  believe  and  hope,  than  there  was  any 
need  of  my  doing ;  but  I  look  to  your  goodness 
and  affection  for  your  brother  to  excuse  me.  I 
want  merely  to  suggest  that  you  should  keep  a 
46 


A    Year's    Letters 

quiet  friendly  watch  over  Frank,  so  as  to  save 
him  any  distress  or  difficulty  in  the  future.  A 
sister  rather  older  and  wiser  than  himself  ought 
really  to  be  about  the  best  help  and  mainstay  a 
boy  of  his  age  can  have.  If  I  had  had  but  five 
years  or  so  more  to  back  me,  I  might  have  saved 
your  father  some  scrapes  at  that  time  of  life. 

I  have  one  more  petition  to  my  dear  niece :  be 
as  patient  with  my  garrulous  exigeance  as  you 
can.  If  you  see  Reginald  Harewood  this  winter, 
as  I  dare  say  you  will — he  is  pretty  sure  to  be  at 
Lidcombe  before  the  month  is  out — may  I  beg 
your  bienveillance  towards  the  poor  boy?  He 
is  "sat  upon"  (as  he  says)  just  now  to  such  an 
extent  that  it  is  a  real  charity  in  any  one  to  show 
him  a  little  kindness.  I  know  his  brilliant  col- 
lege career  is  not  a  prepossessing  episode  in  his 
history ;  but  so  many  boys  do  so  much  worse 
— and  come  off  so  much  better !  That  insuffer- 
able Captain  Harewood  behaves  as  if  every  one 
else's  son  had  made  the  most  successful  studies, 
and  at  the  end  of  three  years  saved  up  a  small 
but  decent  income  out  of  his  annual  allowance. 
If  my  father  had  only  had  to  pay  two  hundred 
for  the  college  debts  of  yours!  I  cannot  con- 
ceive what  parents  will  be  in  the  next  genera- 
tion :  I  am  sure  we  were  good-natured  enough  in 
ours,  and  you  see  what  our  successors  are. 

If  Mr.  Radworth  has  spare  time  enough,  in 
47 


Love's   Cross-currents 

the  intervals  of  his  invaluable  labours,  to  be  re- 
minded of  an  old  woman's  unprofitable  exist- 
ence, will  you  remember  me  to  him  in  the  kind- 
est way  ?  and,  if  you  have  toiled  through  my 
letter,  accept  the  love  and  apologies  of  your 
affectionate  aunt. 


II 

MRS.  RADWORTH  TO  FRANCIS  CHEYNE 

Blocksham,  Jan.  i6th. 

MY  DEAR  FRANK: 

IF  you  had  taken  my  advice  you  would  have 
arranged  either  to  stay  up  at  Oxford  during  the 
vacation,  or  at  least  to  be  back  by  the  beginning 
of  next  term.  Of  course,  we  should  like  of  all 
things  to  have  you  here  as  long  as  you  chose  to 
stay,  and  it  would  be  nicer  for  you,  I  should 
think,  than  going  back  to  fog  and  splashed  snow 
in  London;  but  our  half  engagement  to  Lid- 
combe  upsets  everything.  Ernest  is  perfectly 
restless  just  now ;  between  his  dislike  of  moving 
and  his  wish  to  see  the  old  Lidcombe  museum 
again,  he  does  nothing  but  papillonner  about 
the  house  in  a  beetle-headed  way,  instead  of 
sticking  to  his  cobwebs,  as  a  domestic  spider 
should.  Are  you  also  bent  upon  Lidcombe? 
For,  if  you  go,  we  go.  Make  up  your  mind  to 
that.  If  you  don't,  I  can  easily  persuade 
Ernest  that  his  museum  has  fallen  to  dust  and 
tatters  under  the  existing  dynasty,  which, 
49 


Love's   Cross-currents 

indeed,  is  not  so  unlikely  to  be  true.  Amicia 
writes  very  engagingly  to  me,  just  the  sort  of 
letter  one  would  have  expected,  limp,  amiable, 
rather  a  smirking  style;  flaccid  condescension; 
evidently  feels  herself  agreeable  and  gracious. 
I  am  rather  curious  to  see  how  things  get  on 
there.  You  seem  to  have  impressed  people 
somehow  with  an  idea  that  during  your  last 
visit  the  household  harmony  suffered  some  blow 
or  other  which  it  has  not  got  over  yet.  Is  there 
any  truth  in  the  notion  ?  But  of  course,  if  there 
were,  I  should  have  known  of  it  before  now,  if 
I  were  ever  to  know  it  at  all. 

I  have  had  a  preposterous  letter  from  Aunt 
Midhurst ;  the  woman  is  really  getting  past  her 
work:  her  satire  is  vicious,  stupid,  pointless  to 
a  degree.  Somebody  has  been  operating  on  her 
fangs,  I  suppose,  and  extracting  the  venom.  It 
is  curious  to  remember  what  one  always  heard 
about  her  wit  and  insight  and  power  of  reading 
character;  she  has  fallen  into  a  sort  of  hashed 
style,  between  a  French  portiere  and  a  Dickens 
nurse.  It  makes  one  quite  sorry  to  read  the  sort 
of  stuff  she  has  come  to  writing,  and  think  that 
she  was  once  great  as  a  talker  and  letter-writer 
— like  looking  at  her  grey  fierce  old  face  (museau 
de  louve,  as  she  called  it  once  to  me)  and  remem- 
bering that  she  was  thought  a  beauty.  Still  you 
know  some  people  to  this  day  talk  about  the 

5° 


A    Year's    Letters 

softness  and  beauty  of  her  face  and  looks,  and 
I  suppose  she  is  different  to  them.  To  me  she 
always  looked  like  a  cat,  or  some  bad  sort  of  bird, 
with  those  greyish-green  eyes  and  their  purple 
pupils. 

I  need  hardly  tell  you  that  since  you  were  here 
last  the  place  has  been  most  dismal.  Ernest  has 
taken  to  insects  now;  il  me  manquait  cela.  He 
has  a  room  full  of  the  most  dreadful  specimens. 
In  the  evenings  he  reads  me  extracts  from  his 
MS.  treatise  on  the  subject,  which  is  to  be  pub- 
lished in  the  "  County  Philosophical  and  Scien- 
tific Transactions."  C'est  rejouissant !  After 
all,  I  think  you  are  right  not  to  come  here  more 
than  you  can  help.  The  charity  your  com- 
ing would  be  to  me  you  must  know;  but 
no  doubt  it  would  have  to  be  too  dearly  paid 
for. 

Lady  Midhurst  tells  me  that  your  ex-ally  in 
old  days,  and  my  ex-enemy,  Reginald  Harewood, 
is  to  be  at  Lidcombe  by  the  end  of  this  month. 
Have  you  seen  him  since  the  disgraceful  finale  of 
his  Oxford  studies?  I  remember  having  met 
him  a  month  or  two  since  when  I  called  on  her 
in  London,  and  he  did  not  seem  to  me  much  im- 
proved. One  is  rather  sorry  for  him,  but  it  is 
really  too  much  to  be  expected  to  put  up  with 
that  kind  of  young  man  because  of  his  disad- 
vantages. I  hope  you  do  not  mean  to  renew 


Love's    Cross-currents 

that  absurd  sort  of  intimacy  which  he  had 
drawn  you  into  at  one  time. 

I  am  rather  anxious  to  see  Lidcombe  in  its 
present  state,  so  I  think  we  shall  have  to  go ;  but 
seriously,  if  people  are  foolish  enough  to  talk 
about  your  relations  there,  I  would  not  go,  in 
your  place.  I  am  not  going  to  write  you  homi- 
lies after  the  fashion  of  Lady  M.,  or  appeal  to 
your  good  feeling  on  the  absurd  subject ;  I  never 
did  go  in  for  advice.  Do  as  you  like,  but  I 
don't  think  you  ought  to  go. 

Ernest  no  doubt  would  send  you  all  sorts  of 
messages,  but  I  am  not  going  to  break  in  upon 
the  room  sacred  to  beetles  and  bones;  so  you 
must  be  content  with  my  love  and  good  wishes 
for  the  year. 


Ill 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  LADY  CHEYNE 

Ashton  Hildred.  Jan.  24th 

MY  DEAR  CHILD: 

You  are  nervous  about  your  husband's  part 
in  the  business ;  cela  se  voit;  but  I  hardly  see  why 
you  are  to  come  crying  to  an  old  woman  like  me 
about  the  matter.  Tears  on  paper  are  merely 
blots,  please  remember ;  you  cannot  write  them 
out  gracefully.  Try  to  compress  your  style  a 
little ;  be  as  sententious  as  you  can — terse  com- 
plaints are  really  effective.  I  never  cried  over  a 
letter  but  once,  and  then  it  was  over  one  of  my 
husband's!  Poor  good  Sir  Thomas  was  natu- 
rally given  to  the  curt  hard  style,  and  yet  one 
could  see  he  was  almost  out  of  his  mind  with 
distress.  I  suppose  you  know  we  lived  apart  in 
a  quiet  way  for  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life.  It 
was  odd  he  should  take  it  to  heart  in  the  way  he 
did;  for  I  know  he  was  quite  seriously  in  love 
with  a  most  horrid  little  French  actress  that  had 
been  (I  believe  she  was  Irish  myself,  but  she 
called  herself  Mile,  des  Greves — such  a  name! 
s  53 


Love's   Cross-currents 

I'm  almost  certain  her  real  one  was  Ellen  Greaves 
— a  dreadful  wretch  of  a  woman,  with  a  com- 
plexion like  bad  fruit,  absolutely  a  greenish 
brown  when  you  saw  her  in  some  lights) ;  and 
the  poor  man  used  to  whimper  about  H61ene 
to  his  friends  in  a  perfectly  abject  way.  Cap- 
tain H.  told  me  so ;  he  was  of  my  friends  at  that 
epoch;  he  was  courting  your  mother,  and  in 
consequence  hers  also.  Indeed,  I  believe  he 
was  in  love  with  me  at  the  time,  though  I  am 
ten  years  older ;  however,  I  imagine  it  looks  the 
other  way  now.  When  I  saw  him  last  he  was 
greyer  than  Ernest  Radworth.  That  wife  of 
his  (E.  R.'s,  I  mean)  is  enough  to  turn  any 
man's  hair  grey;  I  assure  you,  my  dear  child, 
she  makes  my  three  hairs  stand  on  end.  Her 
style  is  something  too  awful,  like  the  most  de- 
testable sort  of  young  man.  She  will  be  the 
ruin  of  poor  dear  Redgie  if  we  don't  pick  him  up 
somehow  and  keep  him  out  of  her  way.  He  was 
quite  the  nicest  boy  I  ever  knew,  and  used  to 
make  me  laugh  by  the  hour ;  there  was  a  splendid 
natural  silliness  in  him,  and  quantities  of  verve 
and  fun — what  Mrs.  Radworth,  I  suppose,  calls 
pluck  or  go.  Still,  when  one  thinks  she  is  break- 
ing Ernest's  heart  and  bringing  Captain  Hare- 
wood's  first  grey  hairs  to  the  grave  with  vexa- 
tion, I  declare  I  could  forgive  her  a  good  deal  if 
she  were  only  a  lady.  But  she  isn't  in  the  least, 

54 


A   Year's    Letters 

and  I  am  ashamed  to  remember  she  is  my  niece ; 
her  manners  are  exactly  what  Mile.  Greaves's 
must  have  been,  allowing  for  the  difference  of 
times.  I  am  quite  certain  she  will  be  the  death 
of  poor  Redgie.  He  was  always  the  most  un- 
fortunate boy  on  this  earth;  I  dare  say  you  re- 
member how  he  was  brought  up  —  always  wor- 
ried and  punished  and  sermonized,  ever  since 
he  was  a  perfect  baby ;  enough  to  drive  any  boy 
mad,  and  get  him  into  an  infinity  of  the  most 
awful  scrapes  when  he  grew  up :  but  I  did  think 
he  might  have  kept  out  of  this  one.  Clara 
Radworth  must  be  at  least  six  years  older  than 
he  is.  I  believe  she  has  taken  to  painting  al- 
ready. If  there  was  only  a  little  bit  of  scandal 
in  the  matter!  but  that  is  past  praying  for.  It 
is  a  regular  quiet  amicable  innocent  alliance; 
the  very  worst  thing  for  such  a  boy  in  the  world. 
I  have  gone  on  writing  about  your  poor 
brother  and  all  those  dreadful  people,  and  quite 
forgotten  all  I  meant  to  say  to  you :  but  really  I 
want  you  to  exert  your  influence  over  Redgie. 
Get  him  to  come  and  stay  with  you  at  once, 
before  the  Radworths  arrive ;  I  wish  to  Heaven 
he  could  come  here  to  be  talked  round.  I  know 
I  could  manage  him.  Didn't  I  manage  him 
when  he  was  fourteen,  and  ran  away  from  home 
over  here,  and  you  brought  him  in  ?  You  were 
delicious  at  eleven,  my  dear,  and  fell  in  love  with 

55 


Love's   Cross-currents 

him  on  the  spot,  like  your  (and  his)  old  grand- 
mother. Didn't  I  send  him  back  at  once, 
though  I  saw  what  a  state  he  was  in,  poor  dear 
boy,  and  in  spite  of  you  and  his  mother?  I 
could  cry  to  this  day  when  I  think  what  a 
beautiful  boy  he  was  to  look  at,  and  how  hard  it 
was  to  pack  him  off  in  that  way,  knowing  as  we 
all  did  that  he  would  be  three-quarters  mur- 
dered when  he  got  home  (and  I  declare  Captain 
Harewood  ought  to  have  been  put  in  the  pillory 
for  the  way  he  used  to  whip  that  boy  every  day 
in  the  week — I  firmly  believe  it  was  all  out  of 
spite  to  his  mother  and  me) ;  and  you  all  thought 
me  and  your  father  desperately  cruel  people, 
you  know,  as  bad  as  Redgie's  father;  but  I  was 
nearly  as  soft  at  heart  as  either  of  you,  and  after 
he  went  away  in  the  gig  I  cried  for  five  minutes 
by  myself.  Never  cry  in  public  (that  is,  of 
course,  not  irrepressibly)  as  your  mother  did 
then,  and  if  you  ever  have  children  don't  put 
your  arms  round  their  necks  and  make  scenes; 
it  never  did  any  good,  and  people  always  get 
angry,  for  it  makes  them  look  fools,  and  they 
give  you  an  absurd  reputation  in  the  boiled- 
milk  line.  Your  father  was  quite  put  out  with 
her  after  that  demonstrative  scene  with  Redgie, 
and  it  only  made  matters  worse  for  the  boy  at 
parting,  without  saving  him  a  single  cut  of  the 
rod  when  he  got  home,  poor  fellow!  I  never 
56 


A    Year's    Letters 

was  sorrier  for  anybody  myself;  he  was  such  a 
pretty  boy;  you  ought  to  remember:  for  after 
all  he  is  your  half-brother,  and  might  have  been 
a  whole  one  if  Captain  H.  had  not  been  such 
a  ruffian.  Your  poor  mother  never  was  the 
best  of  managers,  but  she  had  a  great  deal  to 
bear. 

Here  I  have  got  off  again  on  the  subject  of  my 
stupid  old  affection  for  Redgie,  and  made  you 
think  me  the  most  unbearable  of  grandmothers. 
I  must  .try  and  show  you  that  there  are  some 
sparks  of  sense  left  in  the  ashes  of  my  old  wom- 
an's twaddle.  But  do  you  know  you  have 
made  it  really  difficult  for  me  to  advise  you? 
You  write  asking  what  to  do,  and  I  have  only 
to  think  what  I  want  you  to  avoid ;  for  of  course 
you  will  do  the  reverse  of  what  I  tell  you.  And 
in  effect  it  seems  to  me  to  matter  very  little  what 
you  do  just  now.  However,  read  over  this  next 
paragraph;  construe  it  carefully  by  contraries; 
and  see  what  you  think  of  that  in  the  way  of 
advice. 

Invite  Frank  to  Lidcombe,  as  soon  as  the  Rad- 
worths  come ;  get  up  your  plan  of  conduct  after 
some  French  novel — Balzac  is  a  good  model  if 
you  can  live  up  to  him;  encourage  Mrs.  Rad- 
worth,  don't  snub  her  in  any  way,  let  her  begin 
patronizing  you  again;  she  will  if  you  manage 
her  properly ;  be  quite  the  child  with  her,  and,  if 

57 


Love's   Cross-currents 

you  can,  be  the  fool  with  her  husband ;  but  you 
must  play  this  stroke  very  delicately,  just  the 
least  push  in  the  world,  so  as  to  try  for  a  cannon 
off  the  cushion ;  touch  these  two  very  lightly  so 
as  to  get  them  into  a  nice  place  for  you,  when 
you  must  choose  your  next  stroke.  I  should 
say,  get  the  two  balls  into  the  middle  pocket— 
if  I  thought  there  was  a  chance  of  your  under- 
standing. But  I  can  hear  you  saying,  "  Middle 
pocket  ?  such  an  absurd  way  of  trying  at  wit ! — 
and  what  does  it  mean  after  all?"  My  dear, 
there  is  a  moral  middle  pocket  in  every  nice 
well-regulated  family ;  always  remember  and  act 
on  this.  If  Lord  Cheyne  or  Mrs.  Radworth,  or 
either  of  them,  can  but  be  got  into  it  quietly, 
there  is  your  game.  The  lower  pocket  would 
spoil  all,  however  neatly  you  played  for  it ;  but 
this  I  know  you  will  never  understand.  And 
yet  I  assure  you  all  the  beauty  of  the  game  de- 
pends on  it. 

If  you  don't  like  this  style — I  should  be  very 
sorry  if  you  did,  and  it  would  give  me  the  worst 
opinion  of  your  head — I  can  only  give  you  little 
practical  hints,  on  the  chance  of  their  being  use- 
ful. You  know  I  never  had  any  great  liking  for 
my  nephew  Francis.  His  father  was  certainly 
the  stupider  of  my  two  brothers;  and,  my  dear, 
you  have  no  idea  what  that  implies.  If  you  had 
known  your  husband's  father,  your  own  great- 

58 


A    Year's    Letters 

uncle,  you  would  not  believe  me  when  I  say  his 
brother  was  stupider.  But  John  was ;  I  suppose 
there  never  was  a  greater  idiot  than  John. 
Rather  a  clever  idiot,  too,  and  used  to  work  and 
live  desperately  hard  on  occasion;  but,  good 
Heavens!  And  I  can't  help  thinking  the  chil- 
dren take  after  him  in  some  things.  Clara  to  be 
sure  is  the  image  of  her  mother — a  portentous 
image  it  is,  and  I  do  sometimes  think  one  ought 
to  try  and  be  sorry  for  Ernest  Rad worth,  but  I 
positively  cannot ;  and  Frank  is  not  without  his 
points  of  likeness  to  her.  Still  the  father  will 
crop  out,  as  people  say  nowadays  in  their  ugly 
slang.  Keep  an  eye  on  the  father,  my  dear,  and 
compare  him  with  your  husband  when  he  does 
turn  up.  I  don't  want  you  to  be  rude  to  any- 
body, or  to  put  yourself  out  of  the  way  in  the 
least.  Only  not  to  trust  either  of  those  two 
cousins  too  far.  As  for  Cheyne's  liking  for 
Clara  Radworth,  I  wouldn't  vex  myself  about 
that.  She  cares  more  just  now  for  the  younger 
bird — I  declare  the  woman  makes  me  talk  her 
style,  at  sixty  and  a  little  over.  There  is  cer- 
tainly something  very  good  about  her,  what- 
ever we  two  may  think.  If  you  will  hold  her 
off  Redgie  while  he  is  in  the  house  (do,  for  my 
sake,  I  entreat  of  you)  I  will  warrant  your  hus- 
band against  her.  She  will  not  try  anything  in 
that  quarter  unless  she  has  something  else  in 

59 


Love's   Cross-currents 

hand.  Cheyne  is  an  admirable  double;  any 
pleasant  sort  of  woman  can  attract  him  to  her, 
but  no  human  power  will  attract  him  from  you. 
There  is  your  comfort — or  your  curse,  as  you 
choose  to  make  it.  C.  R.  would  never  think  of 
him  except  as  a  background  in  one  of  her  pict- 
ures. He  would  throw  out  Redgie,  for  example, 
beautifully,  and  give  immense  life  and  meaning 
to  the  composition  of  her  effects.  But  as  I  know 
you  have  no  other  visitor  at  Lidcombe  who  is 
human  in  any  mentionable  degree,  I  imagine 
she  will  rest  on  her  oars — if  you  do  but  keep  her 
off  my  poor  Redgie.  You  see  I  want  you  to 
have  a  sight  of  them  together,  that  you  may 
study  and  understand  her — on  that  ground  only 
I  authorize  you  to  invite  her  and  Ernest  while 
Redgie  is  still  with  you  (besides  you  will  be 
better  able  to  help  him  if  you  see  it  beginning 
again  under  your  face) ;  not  in  the  least  because 
the  Radworths*  being  there  is  a  pretext  for  in- 
viting Frank  Cheyne,  and  Clara  a  good  fire- 
screen for  you ;  a  Dieu  ne  plaise,  I  am  not  quite 
such  a  liberal  old  woman  as  that. 

But  I  want  you  to  be  light  in  your  handling  of 
C.  R. ;  give  her  play:  it  will  be  a  charming  educa- 
tion for  you.  If  you  do  this — even  supposing 
I  am  wrong  about  your  husband's  devotion  to 
you — you  are  sure  of  him.  Item:  if  you  can 
once  come  over  her  (but  for  Heaven's  sake  don't 

60 


A    Year's    Letters 

irritate  or  really  frighten  her)  she  will  be  a 
capital  friend  for  you.  Find  out,  too,  how  her 
brother  feels  towards  her,  and  write  me  word, 
that  I  may  form  my  own  ideas  as  to  him.  If  he 
appreciates  without  overrating  her  there  must 
be  some  sense  in  him.  She  is  one  of  those  wom- 
en who  are  usually  overrated  by  the  men,  and 
underrated  by  the  women,  capable  of  appreciat- 
ing them.  Mind  you  never  take  to  despising 
any  character  of  that  sort.  I  mean  if  there  is  a 
character  in  the  case. 

I  have  written  you  a  shamefully  long  letter, 
and  hardly  a  word  to  the  point  in  it  I  dare  say 
you  think ;  besides,  I  am  not  at  all  sure  I  should 
have  written  part  of  it  to  a  good  young  married 
woman ;  there  is  one  comfort,  you  won't  see  what 
I  mean  in  the  least.  One  thing  you  must  take 
on  trust,  that  I  do  seriously  with  all  my  heart 
hope  and  mean  to  serve  you,  my  dear  child,  and 
help  you  to  live  well  and  wisely  and  happily — 
as  I  must  say  you  ought.  Do  take  care  of 
Redgie ;  I  regard  that  boy  as  at  least  three  years 
younger  than  you  instead  of  three  years  older. 
Love  to  both  of  you,  from  your  mother  and 
Your  very  affectionate 

H.  MIDHURST. 


IV 

FRANCIS  CHEYNE  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

London,  Jan.  25 tk. 

MY  DEAREST  CLARA: 

I  AM  off  to  Lidcombe  in  a  fortnight's  time,  and 
shall  certainly  not  return  to  Oxford  (if  I  do  at 
all)  till  the  summer  term.  I  really  wonder  you 
should  think  it  worth  while  to  dwell  for  a  second 
on  what  Lady  Midhurst  may  choose  to  say :  for  I 
cannot  suppose  you  have  any  other  grounds  to 
go  on  than  this  letter  of  hers ;  and  certainly  I  do 
not  intend  to  alter  my  plans  in  the  least  on  ac- 
count of  her  absurdities.  You  must  remember 
what  our  father  used  to  say  about  her  "  impo- 
tent incontinence  of  tongue."  I  should  be 
ashamed  to  let  a  vicious,  virulent  old  aunt  in- 
fluence me  in  any  way.  I  am  fond  of  our 
cousins,  and  enjoy  being  with  them ;  it  is  a  nice 
house  to  stay  at,  and,  as  long  as  we  all  enjoy 
being  there  together,  I  cannot  see  why  we 
should  listen  to  any  spiteful  and  senseless  .com- 
mentaries. To  meet  you  there  will  of  course 
make  it  all  the  pleasanter ;  I  need  not  fear  that 
you  will  take  the  overseer  line  with  me,  what- 

Oa 


A   Year's    Letters 

ever  our  aunt's  wisdom  may  suggest.  As  to 
Amicia,  I  think  she  is  very  delightful  to  be  with, 
and  fond  of  us  all  in  a  friendly  amiable  way; 
and  I  know  she  is  very  beautiful  and  agreeable 
to  look  at  or  talk  to,  which  never  spoils  any- 
thing; but  as  to  falling  in  love,  you  must  have 
the  sense  to  know  that  nobody  over  eighteen,  or 
out  of  a  bad  French  novel,  would  run  his  head 
into  such  a  mess :  to  say  nothing  of  the  absurdity 
or  the  villainy  of  such  a  thing.  It  all  conies  of 
the  ridiculous  and  infamous  sort  of  reading 
which  I  have  no  doubt  the  dear  aunt  privately 
indulges  in.  I  do  hope  you  will  never  quote  her 
authority  to  me  again,  even  in  chaff.  I  never 
can  believe  that  she  really  had  the  bringing  up 
of  Amicia  in  her  own  hands;  it  is  wonderful 
how  little  of  the  Midhurst  mark  has  been  left  on 
her.  I  suppose  her  father  was  a  nicer  sort  of 
fellow  to  begin  with ;  for  as  to  our  cousin  Mrs. 
Stanford,  one  can  hardly  suppose  that  she  be- 
queathed Amy  an  antidote  to  her  own  blood. 
I  am  sure  her  son  has  enough  of  the  original 
stamp  on  him:  I  do  not  wonder  at  Lady  M.'s 
liking  for  him,  considering.  You  decidedly 
need  not  be  in  the  least  afraid  of  any  excessive 
intimacy  between  us.  Redgie  Hare  wood  has 
been  some  weeks  in  town  it  seems,  and  I  have 
met  him  two  or  three  times.  I  agree  with  you 
that  he  is  just  what  he  used  to  be,  only  on  a. 

63 


Love's   Cross-currents 

growing  scale.  At  school  I  remember  he  used 
simply  to  fldner  nine  days  out  of  ten,  and  on  the 
tenth  either  get  into  some  serious  row,  or  turn 
up  with  a  decent  set  of  verses  for  once  in  a  way. 
I  dare  say  he  will  be  rather  an  available  sort  of 
inmate  at  Lidcombe;  you  will  have  to  put  up 
with  him  at  all  events  if  you  go,  for  I  believe  he 
is  there  already.  Really,  if  you  can  get  on  with 
him  at  first,  I  think  you  will  find  there  are  worse 
fellows  going.  It  appears,  for  one  thing,  that 
his  admiration  of  you  is  immense.  He  does  me 
the  honour  to  seek  me  out,  rather  with  a  view  I 
suppose  of  getting  me  to  talk  about  you.  That 
meeting  here  in  London,  after  his  final  flight  from 
Oxford  mists  in  the  autumn  term,  seems  to  have 
done  for  him  just  now.  So,  if  you  ever  begin 
upon  the  subject  of  Amicia  to  me,  I  shall  retort 
upon  you  with  that  desirable  brother  of  hers. 
I  should  like  to  see  old  Harewood's  face  if  his 
son  were  ever  to  treat  him  to  such  a  rhapsody  as 
was  inflicted  upon  me  the  last  time  Reginald 
was  in  my  rooms  here. 

I  start  next  week,  so  probably  I  shall  be  at 
Lord  Cheyne's  before  you.  Come  as  soon  as 
you  can  after  me,  and  take  care  of  Ernest.  Do 
as  you  like  for  the  rest,  but  pray  write  no  more 
Midhurst  letters  at  second-hand  to 

Your  affectionate  brother, 

FRANCIS  CHEYNE. 
64 


V 

LADY  CHEYNE  TO  FRANCIS  CHEYNE 

Lidcombe,  Feb.  ist. 

You  know,  I  hope,  that  we  expect  your  sister 
and  Mr.  Radworth  in  the  course  of  the  week  ?  I 
have  had  the  kindest  letter  from  her,  and  it  will 
be  a  real  pleasure  to  see  something  more  of  them 
at  last.  I  have  always  liked  your  brother-in- 
law  very  much ;  I  never  could  understand  your 
objection  to  scientific  men.  They  seem  to  me 
the  most  quiet,  innocuous,  good  sort  of  people 
one  could  wish  to  see.  I  quite  understand 
Clara's  preferring  one  to  a  political  or  poetical 
kind  of  man.  You  and  Reginald  are  oppressive 
with  your  violent  theories  and  enthusiasms,  but 
a  nice  peaceable  spirit  of  research  never  puts 
out  anybody.  I  remember  thinking  Mr.  Rad- 
worth's  excitement  and  delight  about  his  last 
subject  of  study  quite  touching;  I  am  sure  I 
should  enter  into  his  pursuits  most  ardently  if  I 
were  his  wife.  It  is  strange  to  me  to  remember 
I  have  not  seen  either  of  them  since  they  called 
last  at  Ashton  Hildred,  a  few  months  before 
65 


Love's   Cross-currents 

my  marriage.  I  suspect  your  sister  has  a 
certain  amount  of  contempt  for  my  age  and 
understanding;  all  I  hope  is  that  I  shall  not 
disgrace  myself  in  the  eyes  of  such  a  clever  per- 
son as  she  is.  Clara  is  one  of  the  people  I  have 
always  been  a  little  in  awe  of;  and  I  quite  be- 
lieve, if  the  truth  were  known,  you  are  rather 
of  the  same  way  of  feeling  yourself.  However, 
I  look  to  you  to  help  me,  and  I  dare  say  she  will 
be  lenient  on  the  whole.  Her  letter  was  very 
gracious. 

I  suppose  you  have  heard  of  Reginald's 
arrival  ?  He  is  wild  at  the  notion  of  seeing  your 
sister  again.  I  never  saw  anybody  so  excited  or 
so  intense  in  his  way  of  expressing  admiration. 
It  seems  she  is  his  idea  of  perfect  grace  and 
charm ;  I  am  very  glad  he  has  such  a  good  one, 
but  he  is  dreadfully  unflattering  to  me  in  the 
meantime,  and  wants  to  form  everybody  upon 
her  model.  I  hope  you  are  not  so  inflammable 
on  European  matters  as  he  seems  to  be;  but  I 
know  you  used  to  be  worse.  Since  he  has  taken 
up  with  Italy,  there  is  no  living  with  him  on 
conservative  terms.  Last  year  he  was  in  such 
a  state  of  mind  about  Garibaldi  and  the  Sicilian 
business  that  he  would  hardly  take  notice  of 
such  insignificant  people  as  we  are.  My  hus- 
band has  gone  through  all  that  stage  (he  says 
he  has),  and  is  now  rather  impatient  of  the  sort 

66 


A   Year's    Letters 

of  thing;  he  has  become  a  steady  ally,  on 
principle,  of  strong  governments.  No  doubt, 
as  he  says,  men  come  to  see  things  differently 
at  thirty,  and  understand  their  practical  bear- 
ing; but  nothing  will  get  Reginald  to  take  a 
sane  view  of  the  question,  or  (as  Cheyne  puts  it) 
to  consider  possibilities  and  make  allowance  for 
contingent  results.  So,  you  see,  you  are  wanted 
dreadfully  to  keep  peace  between  the  factions. 
Redgie  is  quite  capable  of  challenging  his 
brother-in-law  to  mortal  combat  on  the  issue  of 
the  Roman  question. 

Lord  Cheyne  is  busy  just  now  with  some 
private  politics  of  his  own,  about  which  he 
admits  of  no  advice.  If  he  should  ever  take  his 
seat,  and  throw  his  weight  openly  into  the  scale 
of  his  party,  I  suppose  neither  you  nor  Reginald 
would  ever  speak  to  either  of  us  ?  I  wish  there 
were  no  questions  in  the  world;  but  after  all  I 
think  they  hardly  divide  people  as  much  as  they 
threaten  to  do.  So  we  must  hope  to  retain  our 
friends  as  long  as  they  will  endure  us,  in  spite  of 
opinions,  and  make  the  most  of  them  in  the 
interval.  We  look  for  you  on  the  fifth. 

Believe  me,  ever  your  affectionate  cousin, 

A.  CHEYNE. 


VI 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  REGINALD  HAREWOOD 

Ashton  Hildred,  Feb.  aist. 

OH,  if  you  were  but  five  or  six  years  younger 
(you  know  you  were  at  school  six  years  ago,  my 
dear  boy)!  what  a  letter  I  would  write  your 
tutor!  Upon  my  word  I  should  like  of  all 
things  to  get  you  a  good  sound  flogging.  It  is 
the  only  way  to  manage  you,  I  am  persuaded.  I 
wish  to  Heaven  I  had  the  handling  of  you: 
when  I  think  how  sorry  we  all  were  for  you  when 
you  were  a  boy  and  your  father  used  to  flog  you ! 
You  wrote  me  the  comicallest  letters  in  those 
days;  I  have  got  some  still.  If  I  had  only 
known  how  richly  you  deserved  it!  Captain 
Harewood  always  let  you  off  too  easily,  I  have 
not  an  atom  of  doubt.  How  any  one  can  be 
such  a  mere  school-boy  at  your  age  I  cannot 
possibly  conceive.  People  have  no  business  to 
treat  you  like  a  man.  You  are  nothing  but  a 
great  dull  dunce  of  a  fifth-form  boy  (lower  fifth, 
if  you  please),  and  ought  to  be  treated  like  one. 
You  don't  look  at  things  in  a  grown-up  way. 

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A    Year's    Letters 

I  want  to  know  what  on  earth  took  you  to 
Lidcombe  when  those  Radworths  were  there? 
Of  course  you  can't  say.  Now  I  tell  you,  you 
had  bettef  have  put  that  harebrained  absurd 
boy's  head  of  yours  into  a  wasps'  nest — do  you 
remember  a  certain  letter  of  yours  to  me,  nine 
years  ago,  about  wasps,  and  what  a  jolly  good 
swishing  you  got  for  running  your  head  into  a 
nest  of  them,  against  all  orders  ?  you  thought  it 
no  end  of  a  chouse  then  (I  kept  your  letter,  you 
see ;  I  do  keep  children's  letters  sometimes,  they 
are  such  fun — I  could  show  you  some  of  Amicia's 
that  are  perfect  studies)  to  be  birched  for  getting 
stung,  though  it  was  only  a  good  wholesome 
counter-irritant;  if  all  the  smart  had  been  in 
your  face,  I  have  no  doubt  you  would  have  been 
quite  ill  for  a  week ;  luckily  your  dear  good  father 
knew  of  a  counter-cure  for  inflammation  of  the 
skin.  Well,  I  can  tell  you  now  that  what  you 
suffered  at  that  tender  age  was  nothing  to  what 
you  will  have  to  bear  now  if  you  don't  run  at 
once.  Neither  the  stinging  of  wasps  nor  the 
stinging  of  birch  rods  is  one-quarter  so  bad  as 
the  hornets'  stings  and  vipers'  bites  you  are 
running  the  risk  of.  You  will  say  I  can't  know 
that,  not  having  your  experience  as  to  one  in- 
fliction at  least;  but  I  have  been  stung,  and  I 
have  been  talked  of;  and  if  any  quantity  of 
whipping  you  ever  got  made  you  smart  more 
6  69 


Love's   Cross-currents 

than  the  latter  process  has  made  me,  all  I  can 
say  is  that  between  your  father  and  the  birch 
you  must  assuredly  have  got  your  deserts  for 
once,  in  a  way  to  satisfy  even  me  if  I  had  seen  it. 
I  hope  you  have,  once  or  twice,  in  your  younger 
days ;  if  so,  you  must  have  been  flogged  within 
an  inch  of  your  life. 

However  that  may  be,  I  assure  you  I  have 
been  talked  within  an  inch  of  mine  more  than 
once.  And  so  will  you  if  you  go  on.  I  entreat 
and  implore  you  to  take  my  silly  old  word  for  it. 
Of  course  I  am  well  enough  aware  you  don't 
mind ;  boys  never  do  till  they  are  eaten  up  body 
and  bones.  But  you  really  (as  no  doubt  you 
were  often  told  in  the  old  times  of  Dr.  Birken- 
shaw) — you  really  must  be  made  to  mind,  my 
dear  Redgie.  It  is  a  great  deal  worse  for  a  man 
than  for  a  woman  to  get  talked  about  in  such  a 
way  as  you  two  will  be.  If  there  was  any  real 
danger  for  your  cousin  you  don't  suppose  I 
would  let  Amicia  have  you  both  in  the  house  at 
once  ?  But  as  you  are  the  only  person  who  can 
possibly  come  to  harm  through  this  nonsensical 
business,  I  can  only  write  to  you  and  bore  you  to 
death.  I  have  no  doubt  you  are  riding  with 
Clara  at  this  minute ;  or  writing  verses — Amicia 
sent  me  your  last  seaside  sonnet — detestable  it 
was;  or  boating;  or  doing  something  dreadful. 
It  is  really  exceedingly  bad  for  you:  I  wish  to 

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A    Year's    Letters 

goodness  you  had  a  profession,  or  were  living  in 
London  at  least.  If  you  could  but  hear  me 
talking  you  over  with  Mr.  Stanford!  and  the 
heavy  smiling  sort  of  way  in  which  he  "regrets 
that  young  Harewood  should  be  wasting  his 
time  in  that  lamentable  manner — believes  there 
was  some  good  in  him  at  one  time,  but  this 
miserable  vie  de  fldneur,  Lady  Midhurst"  (I 
always  bow  when  he  speaks  French  in  his  fear- 
ful accent,  and  that  stops  him),  "would  ruin 
any  boy.  Is  very  glad  Amicia  should  see  some- 
thing of  him  now  and  then,  but  if  he  is  always 
to  be  on  those  terms  with  his  father — most  dis- 
graceful," and  so  forth.  Now,  do  be  good  for 
once,  and  think  it  over.  I  don't  mean  what 
your  stepfather  says  (at  least,  the  man  who 
ought  to  have  been  your  stepfather,  if  your 
filial  fondness  will  forgive  me  for  the  hint),  but 
the  way  people  will  look  at  it.  I  suppose  I 
should  pique  you  dreadfully  if  I  were  to  tell  you 
that  nobody  in  the  whole  earth  imagines  for  a 
second  that  there  is  a  serious  side  to  the  business. 
You  are  not  a  compromising  sort  of  person — you 
won't  be  for  some  years  yet;  and  you  cannot 
compromise  Clara.  She  knows  that.  So  does 
Amicia.  So  does  Ernest  Radworth  even,  or  he 
ought,  if  he  has  anything  behind  his  spectacles 
whatever,  which  I  have  always  felt  uncertain  of. 
I  wonder  if  I  may  give  you  a  soft  light  sugges- 
7i 


Love's   Cross-currents 

tion  or  two  about  the  object  of  your  vows  and 
verse?  I  take  my  courage  in  both  hands  and 
begin.  C.  R.  (you  will  remember  I  saw  nearly 
as  much  of  her  when  she  was  a  girl  as  I  did  of 
Amicia,  and  I  always  made  a  point  of  getting 
my  nephews  and  nieces  off  by  heart)  is  one  of 
the  cleverest  stupid  women  I  know,  but  nothing 
more.  Her  tone  is,  distinctly,  bad.  She  has 
the  sense  to  know  this,  but  not  to  improve  it. 
The  best  thing  I  have  ever  noticed  about  her  is 
that,  under  these  circumstances,  she  resolves  to 
make  the  most  of  it.  And  I  quite  allow  she  is 
very  effective  when  at  her  best — very  taking, 
especially  with  boys.  When  she  was  quite  little, 
she  was  the  delight  of  male  playfellows;  girls 
always  detested  her,  as  women  do  now.  (You 
may  put  down  my  harsh  judgment  of  her  to  the 
score  of  my  being  a  woman,  if  you  think  one 
can  be  a  woman  at  my  age — a  thing  I  believe  to 
be  impossible,  if  one  has  had  the  very  smallest 
share  of  brains  to  start  with.)  She  can't  be 
better  than  her  style,  but  she  won't  be  worse. 
I  prefer  Amicia,  I  must  say;  but,  when  one 
thinks  she  might  have  been  like  Lady  Frances 
Law — I  assure  you  I  do  Clara  justice  when  I 
recollect  the  existence  of  that  woman, — or 
Lucretia  Fielding  (you  must  have  seen  her  at 
Lidcombe) ;  but,  if  I  had  had  a  niece  like  that, 
I  should  have  died  of  her.  A  rapid  something  in 

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A   Year's    Letters 

phobia — neptiphobia  would  it  be?  I  suppose 
not;  it  sounds  barbaric,  but  my  Greek  was  al- 
ways very  shaky.  I  learned  .of  my  husband ;  he 
had  been  consul  at  some  horrible  hole  or  other ; 
but,  anyhow,  it  would  have  carried  me  off — in 
ten  days,  at  the  outside.  And  I  hope  she  would 
have  been  hanged. 

The  upshot  of  all  this  is  just  that  our  dear 
C.  R.  is  one  of  the  safest  women  alive.  Not  for 
other  people,  mind ;  not  safe  for  you ;  not  sate  by 
any  means  for  her  husband ;  but  as  safe  for  her- 
self as  I  am,  or  as  the  Queen  is.  She  knows  her 
place,  and  keeps  to  it ;  and  any  average  man  or 
woman  who  will  just  do  that  can  do  anything. 
She  is  a  splendid  manager  in  her  way — a  bad, 
petty,  rather  unwise  way,  I  must  and  do  think ; 
but  she  is  admirable  in  it.  Like  a  genre  painter. 
Her  forte  is  Murillo  beggar-boys;  don't  you  sit 
to  her.  A  slight  sketch  now  and  then  in  the 
Leech  sporting  manner  is  all  very  well.  Even  a 
single  study  between  whiles  in  the  Callot  style 
may  pass.  But  the  gypsy  sentiment  I  cannot 
stand.  Seriously,  my  dear  Redgie,  I  will  not 
have  it.  When  she  has  posed  for  the  ordinary 
fastish  woman,  she  goes  in  for  a  sort  of  Madonna- 
Gitana,  a  cross  of  Raphael  with  Bohemia.  It 
will  not  do  for  you. 

Shall  I  tell  you  the  real,  simple  truth  once  for 
all  ?  I  have  a  great  mind,  but  I  am  really  afraid 

73 


Love's   Cross-currents 

you  will  take  to  hating  me.  Please  don't,  my 
dear  boy,  if  you  can  help,  for  I  had  always  a 
great  weakness  for  you,  honestly.  I  hope  you 
will  always  be  decently  fond  of  me  in  the  long 
run,  malgr6  all  the  fast  St.  Agneses  in  gypsy dom. 
Well,  then,  she  never  was  in  love  but  once,  and 
never  will  be  again.  It  was  with  my  nephew 
Edmund — Amicia  knows  it  perfectly — when  his 
father  was  alive.  She  fought  for  the  title  and 
the  man  with  a  dexterity  and  vigour  and  supple- 
ness of  intellect  that  was  really  beautiful  in  such 
a  girl  as  she  was — delicious  to  see.  I  have  al- 
ways done  justice  to  her  character  since  then. 
My  brother  would  not  hear  of  cousins  marrying, 
probably  because  he  had  married  one  of  our 
mother's  French  connections,  who  must  have 
been  a  second  cousin,  at  least,  of  his  own.  So 
Cheyne  had  to  give  her  up ;  he  was  a  moral  and 
social  philosopher  in  those  days,  and  an  attach- 
ment more  or  less  was  not  much  to  him — he  was 
off  with  her  in  no  time.  But,  take  my  word  for 
it,  at  one  time  he  had  been  on  with  her,  and 
things  had  gone  some  distance ;  people  began  to 
talk  of  her  as  Lady  Cheyne  that  was  to  be.  She 
was  a  still  better  study  after  that  defeat  than 
when  in  the  thick  of  the  fight.  It  steadied  her 
for  life,  and  she  married  Ernest  Radworth  in  six 
months.  Three  years  after  my  poor  brother 
died,  and  the  year  after  that  I  married  Edmund 

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A   Year's    Letters 

to  our  dear  good  little  Amicia,  as  I  mean  to  mar- 
ry you  some  day  "to  a  Queen  of  Sheba. 

When  I  say  Clara's  failure  steadied  her,  you 
know  what  I  mean ;  it  made  her  much  more  fast 
and  loud  than  she  was  before — helped  in  my 
poor  opinion  to  spoil  her  style,  but  that  is  beside 
the  question ;  the  real  point  is  that  it  made  her 
sensible.  She  is  wonderfully  sensible  for  a  clever 
person  who  is  (I  must  maintain)  naturally 
stupid,  or  she  would  have  gone  on  a  higher  tack 
altogether  and  been  one  of  the  most  noticeable 
people  alive.  It  is  exquisite,  charming  to  an 
old  woman,  to  observe  how  thoroughly  she  is  up 
to  all  the  points  of  all  her  games.  She  amuses 
herself  in  all  sorts  of  the  most  ingenious  ways ; 
makes  that  wretch  Ernest's  life  an  Egyptian 
plague  by  constant  friction  of  his  inside  skin 
and  endless  needle-probings  of  his  sore  mental 
places:  enjoys  all  kinds  of  fun,  sparingly  and 
heartily  at  once,  like  a  thoroughly  initiated 
Epicurean  (that  woman  is  an  esoteric  of  the 
Garden) :  and  never  for  an  instant  slips  aside 
from  the  strait  gate  and  narrow  way,  while  she 
has  all  the  flowers  and  smooth  paving  of  the 
broad  one — at  least  all  the  enjoyment  of  them ; 
or  perhaps  something  better.  She  is  sublime; 
anything  you  like;  but  she  is  not  wholesome. 
If  she  were  only  the  least  bit  cleverer  than  she 
is  I  would  never  say  a  word.  Indeed,  it  would 

75 


Love's    Cross-currents 

be  the  best  training  in  the  world  for  you  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  a  real  and  high  genius.  But 
you  must  wait.  Show  me  Ath6nais  de  Montes- 
pan  and  I  will  allow  you  any  folly  on  her  account ; 
but  with  Louise  de  la  Valliere  I  will  not  let  you 
commit  yourself.  You  will  say  C.  R.  is  some- 
thing more  than  this  last;  I  know  she  is;  but 
not  enough.  If  you  had  had  your  English  his- 
tory well  flogged  into  you,  as  it  should  have 
been  if  I  had  had  the  managing  of  matters — 
and  I  should  have  if  your  father  had  not  been 
the  most — never  mind — you  would  have  learnt 
to  appreciate  her.  She  is  quite  Elizabethan, 
weakened  by  a  dash  of  Mary  Stuart.  At  your 
age  you  cannot  possibly  understand  how  any- 
body can  be  at  once  excitable  and  cold.  If  you 
will  take  my  word  for  that  fact,  I  will  throw  you 
another  small  piece  of  experience  into  the 
bargain.  A  person  who  does  happen  to  com- 
bine those  two  qualities  has  the  happiest  tem- 
perament imaginable.  She  can  enjoy  herself, 
her  excitability  secures  that ;  and  she  will  never 
enjoy  herself  too  much  or  pay  too  high  a  price 
for  anything.  These  people  are  always  ex- 
ceedingly acute,  unless  they  are  absolute  dunces, 
and  then  they  hardly  count.  I  don't  mean  that 
their  acuteness  prevents  them  from  being  fools, 
especially  if  they  have  a  strong  stupid  element 
in  them,  as  many  clever  excitable  people  have, 

76 


notamment  ladite  Marie,  who  was  admirably 
and  fearfully  foolish  for  such  a  clever  cold  in- 
tellect as  she  had.  I  fancy  our  friend  has  more 
of  the  Elizabeth  in  her;  quite  as  dangerous  a 
variety.  If  she  ever  does  get  an  impulse,  God 
help  her  friends ;  but  there  will  be  no  fear  even 
then  for  herself:  not  the  least.  Only  do  you 
'take  care;  you  have  not  the  stuff  to  make  a 
Leicester ;  and  I  don't  want  you  to  play  Essex 
to  a  silver-gilt  Elizabeth.  Silver? — she  is  just 
pinchbeck  all  through.  As  to  heart,  that  is, 
and  style ;  her  wits  are  well  enough. 

Now,  if  you  have  got  thus  far  (but  I  am  con- 
vinced you  will  not),  you  ought  to  understand 
(but  I  would  lay  any  wager  you  don't)  what  my 
judgment  of  her  is,  and  what  yours  ought  to  be. 
She  is  admirable,  I  repeat  again  and  again,  but 
she  ought  not  to  be  adorable  to  you;  the  great 
points  about  her  are  just  those  which  appeal  to 
the  experience  of  an  old  woman.  The  side  of 
her  that  a  boy  like  you  can  see  of  himself  is  just 
the  side  he  ought  not  to  care  about.  Of  course 
he  will  like  it  if  he  is  not  warned;  but  I  have 
warned  you:  quite  in  vain,  I  am  fully  prepared 
to  hear.  If  you  are  in  effect  allured  and  fas- 
cinated by  the  bad  weak  side  of  her  I  can't  help 
it:  liber  am  animam  me  am;  I  suppose  even  my 
dunce  of  the  lower  fifth  (at  twenty-three)  can 
construe  that.  My  hand  aches,  and  you  may 

77 


Love's   Cross-currents 

thank  Heaven  it  does,  or  you  would  get  a  fresh 
dressing  (as  people  call  it)  on  paper.  Do,  my 
dear,  try  to  make  sense  of  this  long  dawdling 
wandering  scrawl:  I  meant  to  be  of  some  use 
when  I  began.  I  don't  want  to  have  my  nice 
old  Redgie  made  into  a  burnt-offering  on  the 
twopenny  tinselled  side-altar  of  St.  Agnes  of 
Bohemia. 

I  send  no  message  to  the  Lidcombe  people, 
as  I  wrote  to  Amicia  yesterday.  Give  my  com- 
pliments to  your  father  if  you  dare.  I  must 
really  be  very  good  to  waste  my  time  and 
trouble  on  a  set  of  girls  and  boys  who  are  far 
above  caring  to  understand  what  an  old  woman 
means  by  her  advice.  You  seem  to  me,  all  of 
you,  even  younger  than  your  ages;  I  wish  you 
would  stick  to  dolls  and  cricket.  Cependant, 
as  to  you,  my  dear  boy,  I  am  always 

Your  affectionate  grandmother, 

HELENA  MIDHURST. 

P.S. — You  can  show  this  letter  to  dear  Clara 
if  you  like. 


VII 

REGINALD   HAREWOOD  TO   EDWARD   AUDLEY 

Lidcombe,  March  ist. 

DID  you  see  last  year  in  the  Exhibition  a  por- 
trait by  Fairfax  of  my  cousin  Mrs.  Rad worth? 
You  know  of  course  I  am  perfectly  well  aware 
the  man  is  an  exquisite  painter,  with  no  end  of 
genius  and  great  qualities  in  his  work;  but  I 
declare  he  made  a  mull  of  that  picture.  It  was 
what  fellows  call  a  fiasco — complete.  Imagine 
sticking  her  into  a  little  crib  of  a  room  with  a 
window  and  some  flowers  and  things  behind  her, 
and  all  that  splendid  hair  of  hers  done  up  in 
some  beastly  way.  And  then  people  say  the 
geraniums  and  the  wainscot  were  stunning  pieces 
of  colour,  or  some  such  rot ;  when  the  fellow  ought 
to  have  painted  her  out-of-doors,  or  on  horse- 
back, or  something.  I  wish  I  could  sit  a  horse 
half  as  well;  she  is  the  most  graceful  and  the 
pluckiest  rider  you  ever  saw.  I  rode  with  her 
yesterday  to  Hadleigh,  down  by  the  sea,  and  we 
had  a  gallop  over  the  sands;  three  miles  good, 
and  all  hard  sand;  the  finest  ground  possible; 
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Love's   Cross-currents 

when  I  was  staying  here  as  a  boy  I  used  to  go 
out  with  the  grooms  before  breakfast,  and  ex- 
ercise the  horses  there  instead  of  taking  them 
up  to  the  downs.  She  had  been  out  of  spirits  in 
the  morning,  and  wanted  the  excitement  to  set 
her  up.  I  never  saw  her  look  so  magnificent; 
her  hair  was  blown  down  and  fell  in  heavy  un- 
curling heaps  to  her  waist ;  her  face  looked  out 
of  the  frame  of  it,  hot  and  bright,  with  the  eyes 
lighted,  expanding  under  the  lift  of  those  royal 
wide  eyelids  of  hers.  I  could  hardly  speak  to 
her  for  pleasure,  I  confess;  don't  show  my 
avowals.  I  rode  between  her  and  the  sea,  a 
thought  behind ;  a  gust  of  wind  blowing  off  land 
drove  a  wave  of  her  hair  across  my  face,  upon 
my  lips ;  she  felt  it  somehow,  I  suppose,  for  she 
turned  and  laughed.  When  we  came  to  ride 
back,  and  had  to  go  slower  (that  Nourmahal  of 
hers  is  not  my  notion  of  what  her  horse  should 
be — I  wish  one  could  get  her  a  real  good  one), 
she  changed  somehow,  and  began  to  talk  serious- 
ly at  last ;  I  knew  she  was  not  really  over  happy. 
Fancy  that  incredible  fool  Ernest  Radworth 
never  letting  her  see  any  one  when  they  are  at 
home,  except  some  of  his  scientific  acquaintances 
— not  a  lady  in  the  whole  country-side  for  her  to 
speak  to.  You  should  have  heard  her  account 
of  the  entertainments  in  that  awful  house  of 
theirs,  about  as  much  life  as  there  used  to  be 

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A   Year's    Letters 

at  my  father's.  Don't  I  remember  the  holiday 
dinners  there! — a  parson,  a  stray  military  man 
of  the  stodgier  kind,  my  tutor,  and  the  pater; 
I  kept  after  dinner  to  be  chaffed,  or  lectured,  or 
examined  —  a  jolly  time  that  was.  Well,  I 
imagine  her  life  is  about  as  pleasant ;  or  worse, 
for  she  can  hardly  get  out  to  go  about  at  all. 
People  come  there  with  cases  of  objects,  curiosi- 
ties, stones  and  bones  and  books,  and  lumber 
the  whole  place.  She  had  to  receive  three 
scientific  professors  last  month;  two  of  them 
noted  osteologists,  she  said,  and  one  a  com- 
parative ichthyologist,  or  something  —  a  man 
with  pink  eyes  and  a  mouth  all  on  one  side, 
who  was  always  blinking  and  talking — a  friend 
of  my  great-uncle's,  it  seems,  who  presented 
him  years  ago  to  that  insane  ass  Radworth. 
Think  of  the  pair  of  them,  and  of  Clara  obliged 
to  sit  and  be  civil.  She  became  quite  sad 
towards  the  end  of  our  ride;  said  how  nice  it 
had  been  here,  and  that  sort  of  thing,  till  I  was 
three-quarters  mad.  She  goes  in  three  or  four 
days.  I  should  like  to  follow  her  everywhere, 
and  be  her  footman  or  her  groom,  and  see  her 
constantly.  I  would  clean  knives  and  black 
boots  for  her.  If  I  had  no  fellow  to  speak  or 
write  to,  I  can't  think  how  I  should  stand  things 
at  all. 


VIII 

FRANCIS  CHEYNE  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

London.  March  j$th 

You  don't  suppose  I  want  you  to  quarrel  with 
me,  my  dear  Clara  ?  It  is  folly  to  tax  me  with 
trying  (as  you  say)  to  brouiller  you  with  the 
Stanfords  or  with  Redgie  Harewood.  As  to  the 
latter,  you  know  we  are  on  good  enough  terms 
together ;  I  never  was  hand  and  glove  with  him 
that  I  recollect.  Do  as  you  like  about  Ports- 
mouth. I  will  join  you  if  I  can  after  some  time. 

But  about  my  extra  fortnight  at  Lidcombe 
I  must  write  to  you.  Lord  Cheyne  is  quite 
gracious,  with  a  faint  flavour  of  impertinence ;  I 
never  saw  one  side  of  him  before.  (Since  I  left 
I  have  heard  twice — once  from  him  and  once 
from  Amicia.  They  talk  of  coming  up.  Cheyne 
thinks  of  beginning  to  speak  again.  I  believe 
myself  he  never  got  over  your  cruel  handling  of 
his  eloquence  six  years  ago.  I  remember  quite 
well  once  during  the  Easter  holidays  hearing  you 
and  Lady  Midhurst  laugh  about  it  by  the  hour.) 
Amicia  is,  I  more  than  suspect,  touched  more 

82 


A   Year's    Letters 

deeply  than  we  fancied  by  the  things  that  were 
said  this  winter.  Her  manner  is  often  queer  and 
nervous,  with  a  way  of  catching  herself  up  she 
has  lately  taken  to — breaking  off  her  sentences 
and  fretting  her  lip  or  hand.  I  wish  at  times 
I  had  never  come  back.  If  I  had  stayed  up  last 
Christmas  to  read,  as  I  thought  of  doing,  there 
would  have  been  nothing  for  people  to  talk  of. 
Now  I  certainly  shall  not  think  of  reading  for  a 
degree.  Perhaps  I  may  go  abroad,  with  Hare- 
wood  if  I  can  get  no  one  else.  He  is  the  sort  of 
fellow  to  go  anywhere,  and  make  himself  rather 
available  than  otherwise,  in  case  of  worry. 

Tenez,  I  suppose  I  may  as  well  say  what  I 
meant  to  begin  upon  at  once,  without  shirking 
or  fidgeting.  Well,  you  were  right  enough 
about  my  staying  after  you  left ;  it  did  lead  to 
scenes.  In  a  quiet  way,  of  course;  subdued 
muffled-up  scenes.  I  was  reading  to  her  once, 
and  Cheyne  came  in;  she  grew  hot,  not  very 
red,  but  hot  and  nervous,  and  I  caught  the 
feeling  of  her;  he  wanted  us  to  go  on,  and,  as 
we  began  talking  of  other  things,  left  us  rather 
suddenly.  We  sat  quiet  for  a  little,  and  then 
somehow  or  other  found  ourselves  talking  about 
you — I  think  b,  propos  of  Cheyne 's  preferences; 
and  she  laughed  over  some  old  letter  of  Lady 
Midhurst's  begging  her  to  take  care  of  Redgie 
Harewood,  and  prevent  his  getting  desperately 
83 


Love's    Cross-currents 

in  love  with  you.  I  said  Lady  M.  always  seem- 
ed to  me  to  live  and  think  in  a  yellow-paper 
French  novel  cover,  with  some  of  the  pages 
loose  in  sewing;  then  A.  said  there  was  a  true 
side  to  that  way  of  looking  at  things.  So  you 
see  we  were  in  the  thick  of  sentiment  before 
we  knew  it.  And  she  is  so  very  beautiful  to 
my  thinking;  that  clear  pale  face  and  full  eye- 
brows, well  apart,  making  the  eyes  so  effective 
and  soft,  and  her  cheeks  so  perfect  in  cutting. 
I  cannot  see  the  great  likeness  of  feature  to  her 
brother  that  people  talk  of;  but  I  believe  you 
are  an  admirer  of  his.  It  was  after  this  that  the 
dim  soft  patronizing  manner  of  Cheyne's  which 
I  was  referring  to  began  to  show  itself,  or  I 
began  to  fancy  it.  We  used  to  get  on  perfectly 
together,  and  he  was  never  at  all  gracious  to 
me  till  just  now,  when  he  decidedly  is. 

Make  Radworth  come  up  to  London  before 
you  go  to  Portsmouth  or  Ryde,  or  wherever  it 
is.  And  do  something  or  other  in  the  Ashton 
Hildred  direction,  for  I  am  certain  by  things  I 
heard  Amicia  say,  that  Lady  Midhurst  "  means 
venom."  So  lay  in  a  stock  of  antidotes.  I  wish 
there  was  a  penal  colony  for  women  who  outlive 
a  certain  age,  unless  they  could  produce  a  cer- 
tificate of  innocuous  imbecility. 


IX 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  LADY  CHEYNE 

Ashton  Hildred,  March  i8th. 

So  you  have  made  a  clear  house  of  them  all, 
my  dear  child,  and  expect  my  applause  in  con- 
sequence ?  Well,  I  am  not  sure  you  could  have 
done  much  better.  And  Cheyne  is  perfect 
towards  you,  is  he?  That  is  gratifying  for  me 
(who  made  the  match)  to  hear  of,  but  I  never 
doubted  him.  As  for  the  two  boys,  I  should  like 
to  have  them  in  hand  for  ten  minutes;  they 
seem  to  have  gone  on  too  infamously.  I  retire 
from  the  field  for  my  part;  I  give  up  Redgie; 
he  must  and  will  be  eaten  up  alive,  and  I  respect 
the  woman's  persistence.  Bon  appgtit!  I  bow 
to  her,  and  retire.  She  has  splendid  teeth.  I 
suppose  she  will  let  him  go  some  day?  She 
can  hardly  think  of  marrying  him  when  Ernest 
Radworth  is  killed  off.  If  I  thought  she  did,  I 
would  write  straight  to  Captain  Harewood.  Do 
you  think  the  Radworth  has  two  years'  vitality 
left  him? 

I  am  too  old  to  appreciate  your  state  of  mind 

85 


Love's    Cross-currents 

as  to  your  cousin.  You  know,  too,  that  I  have 
a  weakness  for  clear  accurate  accounts,  and  your 
style  is  of  the  vaguest.  It  is  impossible  you  can 
be  so  very  foolish  as  to  become  amourachte  of  a 
man  in  any  serious  sense.  Remember,  when 
you  write  in  future,  that  I  shall  not  for  a  second 
admit  that  idea.  Married  ladies,  in  modern 
English  society,  cannot  fail  in  their  duties  to 
the  conjugal  relation.  Recollect  that  you  are 
devoted  to  your  husband,  and  he  to  you.  I 
assume  this  when  I  address  you,  and  you  must 
write  accordingly.  The  other  hypothesis  is  im- 
possible to  take  into  account.  As  to  being  in 
love,  frankly,  I  don't  believe  in  it.  I  believe 
that  stimulant  drinks  will  intoxicate,  and  rain 
drench,  and  fire  singe ;  but  not  in  any  way  that 
one  person  will  fascinate  another.  Avoid  all 
folly;  accept  no  traditions;  take  no  sentiment 
on  trust.  Here  is  a  bit  of  social  comedy  in 
which  you  happen  to  have  a  part  to  play ;  act  as 
well  as  you  can,  and  in  the  style  now  received 
on  the  English  boards.  Above  all,  don't  indulge 
in  tragedy  out  of  season.  Resolve,  once  for  all, 
in  any  little  difficulty  of  life,  that  there  shall  be 
nothing  serious  in  it ;  you  will  find  it  depends  on 
you  whether  there  is  to  be  or  not.  Keep  your 
head  clear,  and  don't  confuse  things;  use  your 
reason — determine  that,  come  what  may,  noth- 
ing shall  happen  of  a  nature  to  involve  or  em- 

86 


A   Year's    Letters 

barrass  you.  As  surely  as  you  make  this  resolve 
and  act  on  it,  you  will  find  it  pay. 

I  must  say  I  wish  you  had  been  more  attentive 
to  my  hint  with  regard  to  your  brother.  Study 
of  the  Radworth  interior,  and  the  excitement 
(suppose)  of  a  little  counterplot,  would  have 
kept  you  amused  and  left  you  sensible.  I  see 
too  clearly  that  that  affair  is  going  all  wrong — I 
wish  I  saw  as  clearly  how  to  bring  it  all  right. 
Reginald  is  a  hopeless  specimen — I  never  saw 
a  boy  so  fairly  ensorceU.  These  are  the  little 
pointless  endless  things  that  people  get  ruined 
by.  Now  if  you  would  but  have  taken  notice 
of  things  you  might  have  righted  the  whole 
matter  at  once.  If  I  could  have  seen  you  good 
friends  with  Clara  I  should  have  been  content. 
But  as  soon  as  you  saw  there  was  no  fear  of  her 
making  an  affair  with  your  husband  (or,  if  you 
prefer  it,  of  his  being  tolerably  courteous  to  her) 
you  threw  up  your  cards  at  once.  At  least  you 
might  have  kept  an  eye  on  the  remaining  play- 
ers; a  little  interest  in  their  game  would  have 
given  you  something  better  to  think  about  than 
Frank.  As  it  is,  you  seem  to  have  worked  your- 
self into  a  sort  of  vague  irritable  moral  nervous- 
ness which  is  not  wholesome  by  any  means. 

I  want  you  to  go  up  to  London  for  some  lit- 
tle time,  and  see  the  season  out.  Encourage 
Cheyne's  idea  of  public  life;  it  is  an  admirable 

87 


Love's   Cross-currents 

one  for  both  of  you.  The  worst  thing  you 
could  do  would  be  to  stay  down  at  Lidcombe, 
and  then  (as  you  seem  to  think  of  doing)  join 
your  cousins  again  in  some  foolish  provincial 
or  continental  expedition.  I  had  hoped  to 
have  seen  you  and  Clara  pull  together,  as  they 
say  now,  better  than  you  do;  I  have  failed  in 
the  attempt  to  make  you;  but  at  least,  as  it 
seems  you  two  can  have  no  real  mutual  in- 
fluence or  rational  amicable  apprehension  of 
each  other,  I  do  trust  you  will  not  of  your  own 
accord  put  yourself  in  her  way  for  no  mortal 
purpose.  Is  it  worth  while  meeting  on  the 
ground  of  mutual  indifference?  I  recommend 
you  on  all  accounts  to  keep  away  from  both 
brother  and  sister. 

Not  that  I  underrate  him,  whatever  you  may 
think.  I  see  he  is  a  nice  boy;  very  faithful, 
brave,  and  candid ;  with  more  of  a  clear  natural 
stamp  on  him  than  I  thought.  The  mother  has 
left  him  enough  of  her  quick  blood  and  wit,  and 
it  has  got  well  mixed  into  the  graver  affection 
and  sense  of  honour  that  he  inherits  from  our 
side.  I  like  and  approve  him;  but  you  must 
observe  that  all  this  does  not  excuse  absurdities 
on  either  hand.  Of  course  he  is  very  silly;  at 
his  age  a  man  must  be  a  fool  or  nothing:  by  the 
nothing  I  mean  a  pedant  either  of  the  head  or 
the  heart  species  \avoid  pedants  of  the  heart 

88 


A    Year's    Letters 

kind,  by-the-way),  or  a  coquin  manque.  I  have 
met  the  latter ;  Alfred  Wandesford,  your  father's 
friend,  was  one  of  that  sort  at  Frank's  age; 
you  know  his  book  had  made  a  certain  false 
noise — gone  off  with  a  blank  report — flashed 
powder  in  people's  eyes  for  a  minute;  and, 
being  by  nature  lymphatic  and  malleable  at 
once,  he  assumed  a  whole  sham  suit  of  vices,  cut 
out  after  other  men's  proportions,  that  hung 
flapping  on  him  in  the  flabbiest  pitiable  fashion ; 
but  he  meant  as  badly  as  possible ;  I  always  did 
him  the  justice,  when  he  was  accused  of  mere 
pasteboard  sins  and  scene-painters'  profligacy, 
to  say  that  his  wickedness  was  sincere  but 
clumsy.  It  was  something  more  than  wicked- 
ness made  to  order.  Such  a  man  is  none  the 
less  a  rascal  because  he  has  not  yet  found  out 
the  right  way  to  be  a  rascal,  or  even  because  he 
never  does  find  it  out,  and  dies  a  baffled  longing 
scoundrel  with  clean  hands.  Wandesford  did 
neither,  but  turned  rational  and  became  a 
virtuous  and  really  fortunate  man  of  letters, 
whom  one  was  never  sorry  to  see  about :  and  I 
don't  know  that  he  ever  did  any  harm,  though 
he  was  rather  venomous  and  vulgar.  One  or 
two  of  his  things  are  still  worth  your  read- 
ing. 

Now,  because  Frank  is  neither  a  man  of  this 
sort  nor  of  the  pedant  sort,  but  one  with  just  the 
89 


Love's   Cross-currents 

dose  of  folly  proper  to  his  age,  and  that  folly  of 
rather  a  good  kind,  I  want  him  not  to  get  en- 
tangled in  the  way  that  would  be  more  danger- 
ous for  him  than  for  any  other  sort  of  young 
man.  I  wish  to  Heaven  there  were  some  sur- 
gical process  discoverable  by  which  one  could 
annihilate  or  amputate  sentiment.  Passion, 
impulse,  vice  of  appetite  or  conformation,  noth- 
ing you  can  define  in  words  is  so  dangerous. 
Without  sentiment  one  would  do  all  the  good 
one  did  either  by  principle  or  by  instinct,  and  in 
either  case  the  good  deed  would  be  genuine  and 
valuable.  Sinning  in  the  same  way,  one's  very 
errors  would  be  comprehensible,  respectable, 
reducible  to  rule.  But  to  act  on  feeling  is 
ruinous.  Feeling  is  neither  impulse  nor  prin- 
ciple— a  sickly,  deadly,  mongrel  breed  between 
the  two — I  hate  the  very  word  sentiment.  The 
animalist  and  the  moralist  I  can  appreciate, 
but  what,  on  any  ground,  am  I  to  make  of  the 
sentimentalist  ? 

Decide  what  you  will  do.  Look  things  and 
people  in  the  face.  Give  up  what  has  to  be 
given  up ;  bear  with  what  has  to  be  borne  with ; 
do  what  has  to  be  done.  Remember  that  I  am 
addressing  you  now  with  twenty  years  of  the 
truest  care  and  affection  behind  me  to  back  up 
my  advice.  Remember  that  I  do  truly  and 
deeply  care  about  the  least  thing  that  touches 

90 


A  Year's    Letters 

you.     To  me  you  are  two;  you  carry  your 
mother  about  you. 

Let  us  see  what  your  last  letter  really  amounts 
to.  You  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  your  cousin 
for  the  last  six  weeks,  and  are  vaguely  unhappy 
at  his  going.  (Once  or  twice,  I  am  to  infer,  there 
has  been  a  touch  of  softer  sentiment  in  your 
relations  to  each  other.)  Not,  I  presume,  that 
either  has  dreamt  of  falling  in  love:  but  you 
live  in  a  bad  time  for  intimacies ;  a  time  seasoned 
with  sentiment  to  that  extent  that  you  can 
never  taste  the  natural  flavour  of  a  sensation. 
You  were  afraid  of  Clara  too,  a  little ;  disliked 
her;  left  her  to  Cheyne  or  to  Reginald,  as  the 
case  might  be  (one  result  of  which,  by-the-by, 
is  that  I  shall  have  to  extricate  your  brother, 
half  eaten,  from  under  her  very  teeth) ;  and  let 
yourself  be  drawn,  by  a  sort  of  dull  impulse, 
without  a  purpose  under  it,  towards  her  brother. 
Purpose  I  am,  of  course,  convinced  there  was 
none  on  either  side.  I  should  like  to  have  some 
incidents  to  lay  hold  of;  but  I  am  quite  aware 
that  incidents  never  do  happen.  I  wish  they 
did;  anything  rather  than  this  gradual  steady 
slide  of  monotonous  sentiment  down  a  groove  of 
uneventful  days.  The  recollection  that  you 
have  not  given  me  a  single  incident — nothing 
by  way  of  news  but  a  frightened  analysis  of 
feeling  and  record  of  sentimental  experience — 


Love's   Cross-currents 

makes  me  seriously  uneasy.  Write  again  and 
tell  me  your  plans :  but  for  Heaven's  sake  begin 
moving;  get  something  done;  engage  yourself 
in  some  active  way  of  amusement.  Have  done 
with  the  country  and  its  little  charities  and 
civilities — at  least  for  the  present.  London  is 
a  wholesomer  and  more  reasonable  home  for 
you  just  now. 


X 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  LADY  CHEYNE 

Ashton  Hildred,  April  6th. 

WELL,  I  have  been  to  London  and  back,  my 
dear  child,  with  an  eye  to  the  family  complica- 
tions/and  have  come  to  some  understanding  of 
them.  When  I  wrote  to  you  last  month  I  was 
out  of  spirits,  and  no  doubt  very  stupid  and 
obscure.  I  had  a  dim  impression  of  things 
being  wrong,  and  no  means  of  guessing  how  to 
get  them  right.  Now,  I  must  say  I  see  no  real 
chance  of  anything  unfortunate  or  unpleasant. 
You  must  be  cautious,  though,  of  letting  people 
begin  to  talk  of  it  again.  I  have  a  project  for 
getting  both  the  boys  well  out  of  the  way  on 
some  good  long  summer  tour.  Frank  is  very 
nice  and  sensible ;  I  would  undertake  to  manage 
him  for  life  by  the  mere  use  of  reasoning.  As 
to  Reginald,  c'est  une  tete  f§Ue ;  it  may  get 
soldered  up  in  ten  years'  time,  but  wants  beat- 
ing about  first ;  I  should  like  to  break  it  myself. 
Actually,  I  had  to  encourage  his  verse-making 

93 


Love's   Cross-.currents 

— pat  that  rampant  young  Muse  of  his  on  the 
back — and  stroke  him  down  with  talk  of  pub- 
lication till  he  purred  under  my  fingers.  It  is 
a  mercy  there  is  that  escape- valve  of  verse.  I 
think  between  that  and  his  sudden  engouement 
for  foreign  politics  and  liberation  campaigns,  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing,  he  may  be  kept  out  of  the 
worst  sort  of  mess:  though  I  know  one  never 
can  count  upon  that  kind  of  boy.  I  should  quite 
like  to  enrol  him  in  real  earnest  in  some  absurd 
legion  of  volunteers,  and  set  him  at  the  Quadri- 
lateral with  some  scores  of  horrid  disreputable 
picciotti  to  back  him.  I  dare  say  he  would  fight 
decently  enough  if  he  were  taken  into  training. 
Imagine  the  poor  child  in  a  red  rag  of  a  shirt, 
and  shoeless,  marching  au  pas  over  the  fallen 
dynasties  to  the  tune  of  a  new  and  noisier  Mar- 
seillaise !  It  would  serve  him  right  to  get  rubbed 
against  the  sharp  edges  of  his  theory;  and  if 
he  were  killed  we  should  have  a  mad  martyr  in 
the  family,  and  when  the  red  republic  comes  in 
we  might  appeal  to  the  Committees  of  Public 
Safety  to  spare  us  for  the  sake  of  his  memory. 
His  father  would  die  of  it,  for  one  thing;  I  do 
think  Redgie  is  fated  to  make  him  crever  with 
rage  and  shame  and  horror;  so  you  see  I  shall 
always  have  a  weak  side  in  the  boy's  favour.  But 
if  you  knew  how  absurd  all  this  recandescence 
of  revolution  in  the  young  people  of  the  day 

94 


A   Year's    Letters 

seems  to  me!    My  dear  Amy,  I  have  known 
men  who  had  been  dipped  in  the  old  revolution : 

J'ai  connu  des  vivants  a  qui  Danton  parlait. 

You  remember  that  great  verse  of  Hugo's;  I 
showed  it  to  Reginald  the  last  time  he  was 
declaiming  to  me  on  Italy,  and  confuted  him 
out  of  the  master's  mouth.  It  is  true  of  me, 
really;  both  my  own  father  and  my  dear  old 
friend,  Mr.  Chetwood,  had  been  in  Paris  at 
dangerous  times.  They  had  seen  the  great 
people  of  the  period,  and  the  strange  sights  of  it. 
I  have  run  off  into  all  this  talk  about  old 
recollections,  and  forgotten,  as  usual,  my  start- 
ing-point ;  I  was  thinking  of  the  last  interview  I 
had  with  Reginald.  But  I  suppose  you  want 
some  account  of  my  stay  in  London.  You 
know  I  had  your  house  to  myself  (it  was  ex- 
cellent on  Cheyne's  part  to  renew  his  offer  of 
lending  it,  and  spare  an  ancient  relative  the 
trouble  of  asking  you  to  get  her  the  loan  of  it 
from  him) ;  and,  as  your  father  came  up  with  me, 
I  travelled  pleasantly  enough,  though  we  had 
fearful  companions.  I  rested  for  a  day  or  two, 
and  then  called  upon  the  Radworths.  Ernest 
looks  fifty;  if  he  had  the  wit  to  think  of  it,  I 
should  say  he  must  always  have  understated 
his  real  age.  I  have  no  doubt,  though,  he  will 
95 


Love's   Cross-currents 

live  for  ages  (I  don't  mean  his  reputation,  but 
his  bodily  frame);  unless,  indeed,  she  poisons 
him — I  am  certain  she  would,  if  she  durst.  She 
herself  looks  older;  I  trust,  in  a  year  or  two, 
she  will  have  ceased  to  be  at  all  dangerous,  even 
for  boys.  We  had  a  curious  interview ;  not  that 
day,  but  a  week  after.  I  saw  Reginald  next  day ; 
he  is  mad  on  that  score,  quite.  I  like  to  see  such 
a  capacity  for  craziness ;  it  looks  as  if  a  man  had 
some  corresponding  capacity  for  being  reason- 
able when  his  time  came.  He  never  saw  such 
noble  beauty  and  perfection  of  grace,  it  appears ; 
there  is  an  incomparable  manner  about  the 
least  thing  she  does.  She  is  gloriously  good, 
too — has  a  power  of  sublime  patience,  a  sense  of 
pity,  a  royal  forbearance,  a  divine  defiance  of 
evil,  and  various  qualities  which  must  ennoble 
any  man  she  speaks  to.  To  look  at  her  is  to  be 
made  brave  and  just;  to  hear  her  talk  is  a  lay 
baptism,  out  of  which  the  spirit  of  the  auditor 
comes  forth  purged,  with  invulnerable  armour 
on;  to  sit  at  her  side  is  to  become  fit  for  the 
grandest  things ;  to  shake  hands  with  her  makes 
one  feel  incapable  of  a  mean  wish.  Base  things 
die  of  her;  she  is  poisonous  to  them.  All  the 
best  part  of  one,  all  that  makes  a  man  fit  to  live, 
comes  out  in  flower  at  the  sight  of  her  eyes. 
Accepting  these  assertions  as  facts  (remarkable 
perhaps,  but  indisputable),  I  desired  to  know 

96 


A   Year's    Letters 

i 

whether  Ernest  Radworth  was  my  friend's  ideal 
of  the  glorified  man? — heroic  as  a  martyr  he 
certainly  was,  I  allowed,  in  a  passive  way.  If 
a  passing  acquaintance  becomes  half  deified  by 
the  touch  of  her,  I  put  it  to  him  frankly,  what 
must  not  her  husband  have  grown  into  by  this 
time,  after  six  years  of  marriage?  Reginald 
was  of  opinion  that  on  him  the  divine  influence 
must  have  acted  the  wrong  way.  The  man 
being  irredeemably  bad,  abject,  stupid,  there 
was  nothing  noble  to  be  called  out  and  respond 
to  her.  The  only  result,  therefore,  of  being 
always  close  to  the  noblest  nature  created  was, 
in  men  like  him,  a  justly  ordained  increase  of 
degradation.  Those  that  under  such  an  in- 
fluence cannot  kindle  into  the  superhuman  must, 
it  seems,  harden  into  the  animal.  This,  Redgie 
averred,  was  his  deliberate  belief.  Experience 
of  character,  study  of  life,  the  evidence  of  com- 
mon-sense, combined  to  lead  him  unwilling  to 
this  awful  inference.  But  then,  how  splendid 
was  her  conduct,  how  laudable  her  endurance  of 
him,  how  admirable  in  every  way  her  conjugal 
position!  I  suggested  children.  The  boy  went 
off  into  absolute  incoherence.  I  could  not  quite 
gather  his  reasons,  but  it  seems  the  absence  of 
children  is  an  additional  jewel  in  her  crown.  He 
is  capable  of  finding  moral  beauty  in  a  hump, 
and  angelic  meaning  in  a  twisted  foot.  And  all 

97 


Love's   Cross-currents 

the  time  it  is  too  ludicrously  evident  that  the 
one  point  of  attraction  is  physical.  Her  good 
looks,  such  as  they  are,  lie  at  the  bottom  of  all 
this  rant  and  clatter.  We  have  our  own  silly 
sides,  no  doubt;  but  I  do  think  we  should  be 
thankful  we  were  not  born  males. 

After  this  specimen  of  the  prevalent  state  of 
things  I  felt  of  course  bound  to  get  hold  of  her 
and  hear  what  she  had  to  say.  She  had  a  good 
deal.  I  always  said  she  could  talk  well;  this 
time  she  talked  admirably.  She  went  into 
moral  anatomy  with  the  appetite  of  sixty ;  and 
she  is  under  thirty — that  I  admit.  She  handled 
the  question  in  an  abstract  indifferent  way  won- 
derful to  see.  The  whole  thing  was  taken  up  on 
high  grounds,  and  treated  in  a  grand  spirit  of 
research — worthy  of  her  husband.  She  did  not 
even  profess  to  regard  Redgie  as  a  brother — or 
friend.  In  effect  she  did  not  profess  anything: 
a  touch  of  real  genius,  as  I  thought  at  once.  He 
amused  her;  she  liked  him,  believed  in  him, 
admired  his  best  points ;  altogether  appreciated 
the  value  of  such  a  follower  by  way  of  change 
in  a  life  which  was  none  of  the  liveliest.  Not 
that  she  made  any  complaint;  she  is  far  too 
sharp  to  poser  &  Vincomprise.  I  told  her  the 
sort  of  thing  was  not  a  game  permitted  by  the 
social  authorities  of  the  time  and  country;  the 
cards  would  burn  her  fingers  after  another  deal 

98 


A  Year's    Letters 

or  two.  She  took  the  hint  exquisitely:  was 
evidently  not  certain  she  understood,  but  had 
a  vague  apprehension  of  the  thing  meant;  fell 
back  finally  upon  a  noble  self-reliance,  and  took 
the  pure  English  tone.  The  suggestion  of  any 
harm  resulting  was  of  course  left  untouched: 
such  a  chance  as  that  we  were  neither  of  us 
called  upon  to  face.  The  whole  situation  was 
harmless,  creditable  even;  which  is  perfectly 
true,  and  that  is  the  worst  of  it.  As  in  most 
cases  of  Platonism,  there  is  something  to  ad- 
mire on  each  hand.  And  the  existence  of  this 
single  grain  of  sense  and  goodness  makes  the 
entire  affair  more  dangerous  and  difficult  to  deal 
with.  She  is  very  clever  to  manage  what  she 
does  manage,  and  Reginald  is  some  way  above 
the  run  of  boys.  At  his  age  they  are  usually 
made  of  soft  mud  or  stiff  clay. 

When  we  had  got  to  this  I  knew  it  was  hope- 
less dissecting  the  matter  any  further,  and  began 
talking  of  things  at  large,  and  so  in  time  of  her 
brother  and  his  outlooks.  She  was  affectionate 
and  hopeful.  It  seems  he  has  told  her  of  an 
idea  which  I  encouraged ;  that  of  travelling  for 
some  months  at  least.  How  tenderly  we  went 
over  the  ground  I  need  not  tell  you.  Clara  does 
not  think  him  likely  to  be  carried  off  his  feet  for 
long.  Console  yourself,  if  you  want  the  com- 
fort ;  we  have  no  thought  of  marrying  him.  He  is 

99 


Love's   Cross-currents 

best  unattached.  At  the  present  writing  he  no 
doubt  thinks  more  of  you  than  she  would  admit. 
I  regret  it ;  but  he  does.  Do  you,  my  dear  child, 
take  care  and  keep  out  of  the  way  just  now.  I 
hear  (from  Ernest  Radworth;  his  wife  said 
nothing  of  it;  in  fact,  when  he  began  speaking 
the  corners  of  her  mouth  and  eyelids  flinched 
with  vexation — just  for  a  breath  of  time)  that 
there  is  some  talk  now  of  a  summer  seaside  ex- 
pedition. Redgie  of  course ;  Frank  of  course ;  the 
Radworths,  and  you  two.  I  beg  you  not  to 
think  of  it.  Why  on  earth  should  you  all  lounge 
and  toss  about  together  in  that  heavy  way? 
You  are  off  to  London  at  last,  or  will  be  in  ten 
days'  time,  you  say ;  at  least,  before  May  begins. 
Stay  there  till  it  breaks  up;  and  then  go  either 
north  or  abroad.  Yachts  are  ridiculous,  and  I 
know  you  will  upset  yourself.  To  be  sure  sen- 
timent can  hardly  get  mixed  into  the  situation 
if  you  do.  The  soupir  entrecoup£  de  spasmes  is 
not  telling  in  a  cabin ;  you  sob  the  wrong  way. 
Think  for  a  second  of  too  literal  heart-sickness. 
Cheyne  is  fond  of  the  plan,  it  seems ;  break  him 
of  that  leaning.  He  and  Redgie  devised  it  at 
Lidcombe,  Ernest  says  (he  has  left  off  saying 
Harewood ;  not  the  best  of  signs ;  fcenum  habet— 
never  mind  how  tied  on ;  if  he  does  go  mad  we 
will  adjust  it ;  but  I  forgot  I  never  let  you  play 
at  Latin.  Rub  out  this  for  me ;  I  never  erase,  as 

100 


A    Year's    Letters 

you  know,  it  whets  and  frets  curiosity;  and  I 
can't  begin  again). 

Frank,  when  I  saw  him,  pleased  me  more  than 
I  had  hoped.  I  made  talk  to  him  for  some  time ; 
he  is  unusually  reticent  and  rational;  a  rest 
and  refreshment  after  that  insane  boy  whom  we 
can  neither  of  us  drive  or  hold  as  yet  (but  I  shall 
get  him  well  in  hand  soon,  et  puis  gare  aux 
ruades !  Kick  he  will,  but  his  mouth  shall  ache 
and  his  flanks  bleed  for  it).  No  display  or 
flutter  of  any  kind ;  a  laudable,  peaceable  youth, 
it  seems  to  me.  Very  shy  and  wary ;  would  not 
open  up  in  the  least  at  the  mention  of  you :  talk- 
ed of  his  sister  very  well  indeed.  I  see  the 
points  of  resemblance  now  perfectly,  and  the 
sides  of  character  where  the  likeness  breaks 
down.  He  is  clever  as  well  as  she,  but  less  rapid 
and  loud ;  the  notes  of  his  voice  pleasant  and  of 
a  good  compass,  not  various.  I  should  say  a 
far  better  nature;  more  liberal,  fresher,  clearer 
altogether,  and  capable  of  far  more  hard  work. 
Miss  Banks  comes  out  in  both  their  faces  alike, 
though  corrected  of  course  by  John,  which 
makes  her  very  passable. 

Is  there  much  more  to  say  ?  As  you  must  be 
getting  tired  again,  I  will  suppose  there  is  not. 
Will  you  understand  if  I  suggest  that  in  case  of 
any  silent  gradual  breach  beginning  between 
Cheyne  and  Frank,  you  ought  to  help  it  to 

8  101 


Love's   Cross-currents 

widen  and  harden  in  a  quiet  wise  way  ?  I  think 
you  ought.  I  don't  mean  a  coolness;  but  just 
that  sort  of  relation  which  swings  safe  in  full 
midway  between  intimacy  and  enmity.  We 
all  trtist,  you  know,  that  he  is  never  to  be  the 
heir;  you  must  allow  us  to  look  for  the  reverse 
of  that.  Then,  don't  you  see  for  yourself,  it 
must  be  best  for  him  to  get  a  good  standing  for 
himself  on  his  own  ground,  and  not  hover  and 
•flicker  about  Lidcombe  too  much  ?  I  know  my 
dear  child  will  see  the  sense  of  what  I  say.  Not, 
I  hope  and  suppose,  that  she  needs  to  see  it  on 
her  own  account.  Good-night,  dearest ;  be  wise 
and  happy:  but  I  don't  bid  you  trouble  your 
head  overmuch  with  the  heavy  hoary  counsels 
of  Your  most  affectionate, 

H.  M. 


XI 

REGINALD  HAREWOOD  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

London,  April  ijth. 

You  promised  me  a  letter  twice;  none  has 
come  yet.  I  want  the  sight  of  your  handwriting 
more  than  you  know.  Sometimes  I  lie  all  night 
thinking  where  you  are,  and  sometimes  I  dare 
not  lie  down  for  the  horror  of  the  fancy.  If  I 
could  but  entreat  and  pray  you  to  come  away 
— knowing  what  I  do.  Even  if  I  dared  hope 
the  worst  of  all  was  what  it  cannot  be — a 
hideous  false  fear  of  mine — I  could  hardly  bear 
it.  As  it  is  I  am  certain  of  one  thing  only  in  the 
world,  that  this  year  cannot  leave  us  where  the 
last  did.  If  I  must  be  away  from  you,  and  if 
you  must  remain  with  him,  I  cannot  pretend  to 
live  in  the  way  of  other  men.  It  is  too  mon- 
strous and  shameful  to  see  things  as  they  are 
and  let  them  go  on. '  Old  men  may  play  with 
such  things  if  they  dare.  We  cannot  live  and 
lie.  You  are  brave  enough  for  any  act  of  noble 
justice.  You  told  me  once  I  knew  you  to  the 
heart,  and  ought  to  give  up  dreaming  and  hop- 
103 


Love's   Cross-currents 

ing — but  I  might  be  sure,  you  said,  of  what  I 
had.  I  do  know  you  perfectly,  as  I  love  you: 
but  I  hope  all  the  more.  If  hope  meant  any- 
thing ignoble,  could  I  let  it  touch  on  you  for  a 
moment  ?  I  look  to  you  to  be  as  great  as  it  is 
your  nature  to  be.  It  is  not  for  myself — I  am 
ashamed  to  write  even  the  denial — that  I  sum- 
mon you  to  break  off  this  hideous  sort  of  com- 
promise you  are  living  in.  What  you  are  doing 
insults  God,  and  maddens  men  who  see  it.  Think 
what  it  is  to  endure  and  to  act  as  you  do!  I 
ask  you  what  right  you  have  to  let  him  play  at 
husband  with  you  ?  You  know  he  has  no  right ; 
why  should  you  have  ?  Would  you  let  him  try 
force  to  detain  you  if  your  mind  were  made  up  ? 
You  are  doing  as  great  a  wrong  as  that  would  be, 
if  you  stay  of  your  own  accord.  Who  could 
blame  you  if  you  went  ?  Who  can  help  blaming 
you  now?  I  say  you  cannot  live  with  him 
always.  If  I  thought  you  could,  could  I  think 
you  incapable  of  baseness  ?  and  you  know,  I  am 
certain  you  do  in  your  inmost  heart  know,  that 
you  have  shown  me  by  clear  proof  how  infinitely 
you  are  the  noblest  of  all  women.  Do  all  prefer 
a  brave  and  blameless  sorrow,  with  the  veil  close 
over  it,  to  a  shameful  sneaking  happiness  under 
the  mask?  There  was  a  time  when  I  thought 
I  could  have  worn  it  if  I  had  picked  it  up  at  your 
feet.  The  recollection  makes  me  half  mad 
104 


A  Year's   Letters 

with  shame.  To  have  conceived  of  a  possible 
falsehood  in  your  face  is  degradation  enough  for 
me.  Now  that  you  have  set  me  right  (and  I 
would  give  my  life  to  show  you  how  much  more 
I  have  loved  you  ever  since)  I  come  to  ask  you 
to  be  quite  brave.  Only  that.  I  implore  you 
now  to  go  without  disguise  at  all.  You  can- 
not speak  falsely,  I  know ;  but  to  be  silent  is  of 
itself  a  sort  of  pretence.  Speak,  for  Heaven's 
sake,  that  all  who  ever  hear  of  you  may  adore 
you  as  I  shall.  Think  of  the  divine  appeal 
against  wrong  and  all  falsehood  that  you  will 
be  making! — a  protest  that  the  very  meanest 
must  be  moved  and  transformed  by.  It  is  so 
easy  to  do,  and  so  noble.  Say  why  you  go,  and 
then  go  at  once.  Put  it  before  your  brother. 
Go  straight  to  him  when  you  leave  the  hateful 
house  you  are  in.  He  is  very  young,  I  know, 
but  he  must  see  the  greatness  of  what  you  do. 
Perhaps  one  never  sees  how  grand  such  things 
are  —  never  appreciates  the  reality  of  their 
greatness — better  than  one  does  at  his  age.  I 
think  boys  see  right  and  wrong  as  keenly  as  men 
do ;  he  will  exult  that  you  are  compelled  to  turn 
to  him  and  choose  him  to  serve  you.  As  for 
me,  I  must  be  glad  enough  if  you  let  me  think 
I  have  taken  any  part  in  bringing  about  that 
which  will  make  all  men  look  upon  you  as  I  do 
—with  a  perfect  devotion  of  reverence  and  love. 


Love's    Cross-currents 

I  believe  you  will  let  me  see  you  sometimes.  I 
would  devote  my  whole  life  to  Radworth — give 
up  all  I  have  in  the  world  to  him.  Even  him  I 
suppose  nothing  could  comfort  for  the  loss  of 
you ;  but  if  it  ought  to  be  ?  At  least  we  would 
find  something  to  do.  I  entreat  you  to  read 
this,  and  answer  me.  There  can  be  but  one 
answer.  I  wish  to  God  I  knew  what  to  do  that 
you  would  like  done,  or  how  to  say  what  I  do 
know — that  I  love  you  as  no  woman  ever  has 
been  loved  by  any  man.  What  to  call  you  or 
how  to  sign  this,  I  cannot  think.  I  am  afraid 
to  write  more. 

R.  E.  H. 


XII 

MRS.  RADWORTH  TO  REGINALD  HAREWOOD 

Blocksham,  April  28th. 

MY  DEAR  COUSIN: 

ONE  word  at  starting.  I  must  not  have  you 
think  I  feel  obliged  to  answer  you  at  all.  I 
do  write,  as  you  see ;  but  not  because  I  am  afraid 
of  you.  And  I  am  not  going  to  pretend  you  put 
me  out.  You  shall  not  see  me  crane  at  the  gaps. 
Your  fences  are  pretty  full  of  them.  Seriously, 
what  can  you  mean  ?  What  you  want,  I  know. 
But  how  can  you  hope  I  am  to  listen  to  such 
talk?  Run  away  from  nothing?  I  see  no 
sort  of  reason  for  changing.  You  take  things 
one  says  in  the  oddest  way.  I  no  more  mean 
to  leave  home  because  Ernest  and  I  might  have 
more  in  common,  than  I  should  have  thought 
of  marrying  a  man  for  his  beaux  yeux  or  for  a 
title.  I  hate  hypocrisy.  You  are  quite  wrong 
about  me.  Because  I  am  simple  and  frank, 
because  I  like  (for  a  change)  things  and  people 
with  some  movement  in  them,  you  take  me  for 
a  sort  of  tied-up  tigress,  a  woman  of  the  Sand 
107 


Love's   Cross-currents 

breed,  a  prophetess  with  some  dreadful  mission 
of  revolt  in  her,  a  trunk  packed  to  the  lid  with 
combustibles,  and  labelled  with  the  proof-mark 
of  a  new  morality:  not  at  all.  I  am  neither 
oppressed  nor  passionate.  I  don't  want  de- 
livering in  the  least.  One  would  think  I  was 
in  the  way  of  being  food  for  a  dragon.  Even  if 
I  were,  how  could  you  get  me  off  ?  We  are  born 
to  what  we  bear ;  I  read  that  and  liked  it,  a  day 
since,  in  de  Blamont's  last  book.  I  mean  to 
bear  things.  We  all  make  good  pack-horses  in 
time :  I  shall  see  you  at  the  work  yet.  Suppose  I 
have  to  drudge  and  drag.  Suppose  I  am  fast  to 
the  rock  with  a  beast  coming  up  "  out  of  the  sad 
unmerciful  sea."  Better  women  live  so,  and  so 
they  die.  Can  you  kill  my  beast  for  me  ?  I  sus- 
pect not.  It  is  not  cruel.  It  means  me  no  great 
harm:  but  you  it  will  be  the  ruin  of.  It  feeds 
on  the  knight  rather  than  his  lady.  Do  you 
pass  by.  Be  my  friend  in  a  quiet  way,  and 
always.  I  shall  be  gratefuller  for  a  kind  thought 
of  yours  than  for  a  sheer  blow.  The  first  you 
can  afford ;  the  last  hardly.  All  good-will  and 
kindly  feeling  does  give  comfort  and  a  pleasure 
to  natural  people  who  are  not  of  a  bad  make  to 
begin  with.  I  am  glad  of  any,  for  my  part :  and 
take  it  when  I  can.  What  more  could  you  do 
for  me  ?  What  better  could  I  want  ?  Can  you 
change  me  my  life  from  the  opening  of  it  ?  It 
1 08 


A  Year's    Letters 

began  before  yours  was  thought  of ;  you  know  I 
am  older ;  have  been  told  how  much,  no  doubt ; 
something  perhaps  a  thought  over  the  truth — 
what  matter? 

I  will  tell  you  what  I  would  have  done,  and 
would  do,  if  I  could.  I  would  begin  better;  I 
would  be  richer,  handsomer,  braver,  nicer  to 
look  at  and  stay  near,  pleasanter  to  myself.  I 
would  be  the  first  woman  alive,  and  marry  the 
first  man:  not  an  Eve  though,  nor  Joan  of  Arc 
or  Cleopatra,  but  something  new  and  great.  I 
would  live  more  grandly  than  great  men  think. 
I  should  have  all  the  virtues  then,  no  doubt. 
I  would  have  all  I  wanted,  and  the  right  and 
the  power  to  feel  reverence  and  love  and  honour 
of  myself  into  the  bargain.  And  my  life  and 
death  should  make  up  "a  kingly  poem  in  two 
perfect  books."  That  would  be  something  bet- 
ter than  I  can  make  my  life  now.  I  dare  say 
I  might  have  had  a  grander  sort  of  man  for  my 
companion  than  I  have  (a  better  I  think  hardly) ; 
but  then  I  might  have  been  born  a  grander  sort 
of  woman.  There  is  no  end  to  all  that,  you  see. 
I  am  very  well  as  I  am ;  all  the  better  that  I  have 
good  friends. 

I  began  as  lightly  as  I  could,  and  said  nothing 

of  your  tone  of  address  and  advice  being  wrong 

or  out  of  place ;  but  now  you  will  let  me  say  it 

was  a  little  absurd.  Your  desire  seems  to  be  that, 

/  109 


Love's   Cross-currents 

because  I  have  not  all  I  might  have  (whereas  I 
also  am  not  all  I  might  be),  I  should  leave  my 
husband  and  live  alone,  in  the  cultivation  of 
noble  sentiments  and  in  vindication  of  female 
freedom  and  universal  justice.  How  does  it 
sound  to  you  now  ?  I  do  not  ask  you  if  such  a 
proposal  ever  was  made  before.  I  do  not  even 
ask  you  if  it  ought  ever  to  be  listened  to.  I 
make  no  appeal  to  the  opinions  of  the  world.  I 
say  nothing  of  the  immediate  unavoidable  con- 
sequences. Suppose  I  can  go,  and  (on  some 
grounds)  ought  to  go.  Are  there  not  also 
reasons  why  I  ought  to  stay?  Reflect  for  a 
minute  on  results.  Think,  and  decide  for  your- 
self whether  I  could  leave  Ernest.  For  no 
cause.  Just  because  I  can  leave  him,  and  like 
to  show  that  I  know  I  can.  I  ask  you,  is  that 
base  or  not  ?  I  should  be  disgracing  him,  spoil- 
ing his  life  and  his  pleasure  in  it,  and  using  my 
freedom  to  comfort  my  vanity  at  the  cost  of  his 
just  self-esteem  and  quiet  content ;  both  of  which 
I  should  have  robbed  him  of  at  once.  I  will  do 
no  such  thing.  I  will  not  throw  over  the  man 
who  trusted  and  respected  me — loved  me  in  a 
way — gave  me  the  care  of  his  life.  When  he 
married  me  he  reserved  nothing.  I  have  been 
used  generously ;  I  have  received,  at  all  events, 
more  than  I  have  given.  I  wish,  for  my  own 
sake  chiefly,  that  I  had  had  more  to  give  him. 

no 


A  Year's    Letters 

But  what  I  have  given,  at  least  I  will  not  take 
away. 

No,  we  must  bear  with  the  realities  of  things. 
We  are  not  the  only  creditors.  Something  is  due 
to  all  men  that  live.  How  much  of  their  due  do 
you  suppose  the  greater  part  of  them  ever  get  ? 
Was  it  not  you  who  showed  me  long  ago  that 
passage  in  Chalfont's  "  Essays  "  where  he  says — 
I  have  just  looked  it  out  again ;  my  copy  has  a 
slip  of  paper  at  the  page  with  your  initials  on  it. 

"You  are  aware  the  gods  owe  you  some- 
thing, which  they  have  not  paid  you  as  yet — 
all  you  have  received  at  their  hands  being  hither- 
to insufficient?  It  appears  also  that  you  can 
help  yourself  to  the  lacking  portion  of  happiness. 
Cut  into  the  world's  loaf,  then,  with  sharp  bread- 
knife,  with  steady  hand;  but  at  what  cost? 
Living  flesh  as  sensitive  of  pain  as  yours,  living 
hearts  as  precious  as  your  heart,  as  capable  of 
feeling  wrong,  must  be  carved  and  cloven 
through.  Their  blood,  if  you  dare  spill  it  for 
your  own  sake,  doubtless  it  shall  make  you  fat. 
They,  too,  want  something ;  take  from  them  all 
they  have,  and  you  shall  want  nothing.  At  this 
price  only  shall  a  man  become  rich  even  to  the 
uttermost  fulness  of  his  desire,  that  he  shall 
likewise  become  content  to  rob  the  poor." 

Ah,  after  the  reading  of  such  words  as  those, 
can  we  turn  back  to  think  of  our  own  will  and 


Love's   Cross-currents 

pleasure?  Dare  we  remember  our  own  poor 
wants  and  likings?  I  might  be  happier  away 
from  here ;  what  then,  my  dear  cousin  ?  I  might 
even  respect  myself  more,  feel  more  honourable ; 
and  this,  no  doubt,  is  the  greatest  personal  good 
one  can  enjoy  or  desire :  but  can  I  take  from  the 
man  who  relies  on  me  the  very  gift  that  I  covet 
for  myself  ?  A  gift,  too,  this  one,  which  all  may 
win  and  keep  who  are  resolved  not  to  lose  it 
by  their  own  fault.  I,  for  one,  Reginald,  will 
not  throw  it  away ;  but  I  will  not  rob  others  to 
heighten  my  relish  of  it  with  the  stolen  salt  of 
their  life.  Do  you  remember  that  next  bit  ? 

"And  suppose  now  that  you  have  eaten  and 
are  full ;  digesting  gravely  and  gladly  the  succu- 
lence and  savour  of  your  life.  Is  this  happiness 
that  you  have  laid  hold  of?  Look  at  it;  one 
day  you  will  have  to  look  at  it  again ;  and  other 
eyes  than  yours  will.  The  terror  of  a  just  judg- 
ment is  this  that  it  is  a  just  one.  The  sting  of 
the  sentence  is  that  you,  your  own  soul  and 
spirit,  must  recognize  and  allow  that  it  is  rightly 
given  against  you.  Fear  not  the  other  eyes,  not 
God's  nor  man's,  if  what  is  done  remain  right 
for  ever  in  your  own.  Few,  even  among  cow- 
ards, are  really  afraid  of  injustice.  The  mean- 
est of  them  are  afraid  mainly  of  that  which  does 
at  first  sight  look  just.  But  is  this  right  in  your 
eyes,  to  have  cut  your  own  share  out  of  the 
112 


A    Year's    Letters 

world  in  this  fashion?  But  what  sort  of  hap- 
piness, then,  is  this  that  you  have  caught  hold 
of?  The  fairest,  joyfullest,  needfullest  thing 
created  is  fire ;  and  the  fist  that  closes  on  it  burns. 
Let  go,  I  counsel  you,  the  bread  of  cunning  and 
violence,  the  sweet  sources  of  treason  and  self- 
seeking  ;  there  are  worse  ends  than  the  death  of 
want.  A  soul  poisoned  is  worse  off  than  a 
starved  soul." 

You  used  to  praise  this  man  to  me,  saying 
there  was  no  grander  lover  of  justice  in  the 
world.  Surely  to  such  a  writer  liberty  and 
truth  are  as  clear  as  to  you  or  me:  and  this  is 
what  he  admires.  An  American  too,  as  he  says 
himself,  fed  with  freedom,  full  of  the  love  of  his. 
own  right;  but  all  great  men  would  say  as  he 
says,  and  all  good  men  would  do  so.  I  shall  try 
at  least.  "  There  is  an  end  of  time,  and  an  end 
of  the  evil  thereof:  and  when  joy  is  gone  out  of 
thee,  then  shall  not  thy  sorrow  endure  for  long. 
Nevertheless  thou  sayest,  grief  shall  remain 
with  me  now  that  I  have  made  an  end  of  my 
pleasure ;  but  grief  likewise  shall  not  abide  with 
thee.  For  before  the  beginning  a  little  sorrow 
was  ordained  for  thee,  and  also  a  very  little 
pleasure;  but  there  is  nothing  of  thine  that 
endureth  for  ever." 

Do  you  know  where  I  found  that  ?  In  a  book 
of  my  husband's,  the  "  Sayings  of  Aboulfadir," 


Love's   Cross-currents 

in  a  collection  of  translations  headed  "  The  Wise 
Men  of  the  East."  You  see  I  am  growing  as 
philosophic  as  need  be,  and  as  literary.  We 
know  better  than  that  last  sentence,  but  is 
not  the  rest  most  true?  You  will  forgive  my 
preacher's  tone;  it  was  hopeless  trying  to  an- 
swer such  a  letter  as  you  wrote  me  in  a  sus- 
tained light  manner. 

I  hope  you  are  not  put  out  with  me;  I  may 
say,  in  ending,  how  sorry  I  should  be  for  that. 
You  must  find  other  things  to  think  of,  with- 
out forgetting  and  throwing  over  old  friendship. 
"Plenty  of  good  work  feasible  in  the  world 
somehow, ' '  says  your  friend .  For  my  poor  little 
part,  I  have  just  to  hold  fast  to  what  I  have, 
and  at  least  forbear  doing  harm.  Again  I  ask 
you  to  forgive  me  if  this  letter  has  hurt  you 
anywhere.  Of  course  you  can  never  show  it. 
Farewell. 


XIII 

FRANCIS  CHEYNE  TO  LADY  CHEYNE 

London,  May  7*k- 

I  HAVE  read  your  letter  twice  over  carefully, 
and  cannot  see  why  we  should  alter  our  plans. 
My  sister,  I  know,  counts  upon  you.  But  I  can 
imagine  from  what  quarter  the  objection  comes : 
and  I  hardly  like  to  think  you  will  let  it  act  upon 
you  in  this  way.  Indeed,  I  for  one  have  prom- 
ised your  brother  to  meet  him  half-way,  on 
the  understanding  that  we  were  all  to  be  at 
Portsmouth  or  Ryde  together.  He  for  one 
would  be  completely  thrown  out,  if  our  project 
were  to  break  up.  Is  Lord  Cheyne  tired  of  the 
plan,  do  you  think?  If  so,  I  suppose  there  is 
no  more  to  say.  You  speak  so  uncertainly  of 
"having  to  give  it  up,"  and  "not  being  sure  of 
the  summer,"  that  I  have  perhaps  missed  out 
some  such  hint.  Of  course  a  word  must  be 
enough  for  us ;  but  I  fear  it  will  not  be  easy  to 
get  over  Reginald.  He  is  hot  on  the  notion; 
I  think  he  must  have  a  touch  of  the  sea- 
fever.  In  our  school-days  he  used  to  bewail 


Love's   Cross-currents 

his  fate  in  being  cut  off  from  the  sea  as  a 
profession. 

May  8th. 

I  left  off  yesterday  because  I  wanted  to  go  on 
differently.  Now,  as  I  mean  to  finish  this  and 
send  it  off  at  all  hazards,  I  must  speak  out 
once  for  all.  I  do  not  think  you  can  mean  to 
break  with  all  our  hopes  and  recollections,  and 
change  the  whole  look  of  life  for  me.  I  do  not 
suppose  you  have  more  regard  for  me  than  for 
any  other  kinsman  or  chance  friend.  And  I  do 
not  appeal  to  you  on  the  score  of  my  own  feel- 
ing. You  are  no  coward  to  be  afraid  of  words, 
or  of  harmless  things — I  can  say  safely,  that  if 
I  could  die  to  save  you  trouble  or  suffering  I 
should  thank  God.  I  love  nothing  seriously 
that  does  not  somehow  belong  to  you ;  all  that 
does  not  seems  done  in  play,  or  to  get  the  time 
through.  But  I  am  not  going  to  plead  with  you 
on  this  ground.  I  ask  nothing  of  you;  if  you 
were  to  die  to-night  I  should  still  have  had  more 
than  my  fair  share  of  luck  in  life.  If  I  am  to  see 
you  again,  I  can  only  be  as  glad  of  it  as  I  am 
now,  when  I  think  of  you.  I  cannot  under- 
stand why  I  should  not  have  this  too  to  be  glad 
of.  What  can  people  say,  as  things  are? — un- 
less, indeed,  there  were  to  be  a  change  of  ap- 
pearances. Then  they  might  get  vicious,  and 
talk  idiocy.  But  you  know  what  I  shall  do. 
116 


A    Year's    Letters 

It  is  not  I  who  have  to  set  you  right :  we  neither 
of  us  want  stupid  words  or  anything  like  the 
professional  clack  of  love. 

I  think  sometimes  you  might  come  to  care  for 
me  a  little  more.  I  know  you  detest  that.  Per- 
haps the  last  word  above  had  no  business  where 
it  came  in.  I  remember  your  way  of  saying 
what  things  you  hated. 

I  see  Reginald  often  now ;  I  suppose  he  is  all 
right.  I  am  fond  of  him,  but  don't  envy  his 
way  of  taking  things.  I  like  to  look  at  him  and 
make  out  why  he  is  thought  so  like  you:  and,  I 
think,  when  he  is  with  me  he  talks  more  of  you 
than  he  used.  I  can  hardly  think  he  is  older 
than  I  am  when  I  see  how  much  less  he  knows 
or  feels  of  one  thing. 

May  gth. 

I  have  let  this  lie  over  another  day.  I  have 
nothing  to  say  but  that  I  can  say  nothing. 
When  I  begin  to  write,  I  seem  to  hear  you 
speaking.  I  believe  at  times  I  can  tell,  by  the 
sensation,  what  you  are  doing  at  Lidcombe.  I 
have  heard  you  speak  twice  since  I  sat  down, 
and  I  know  the  dress  you  have  on.  Do  not 
write  unless  you  want.  I  can  see  how  you  will 
take  this.  I  cannot  help  it,  you  understand. 
There  is  Reginald's  knock;  but  this  shall  go 
to-day,  and  I  will  not  touch  it  again. 
117 


XIV 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  REGINALD  HAREWOOD 

Ashton  Hildred,  May  izth. 

MY  DEAR  BOY: 

You  are,  without  exception,  the  best  fun  I 
know.  I  have  been  laughing  for  the  last  two 
hours  over  your  letter  and  its  enclosure.  You 
are  not  to  fly  out  at  me,  mind;  I  regard  you 
with  all  just  esteem,  I  think  all  manner  of  good 
things  of  you,  but  you  are  fun,  you  will  allow. 
Old  friends  may  remark  on  such  points  of  char- 
acter, and  yet  draw  no  blood. 

Now,  my  dear  Redgie,  what  do  you  think  I 
got  by  post  exactly  three  days  before  this  epistle 
of  yours,  with  Clara's  valuable  bit  of  English 
prose  composition  so  neatly  inserted?  I  am 
humane,  and  will  not  let  your  brains  tingle  with 
curiosity  for  a  minute.  I  got  this;  a  note  (not 
ill  worded  by  any  means)  from  my  affectionate 
and  anxious  niece,  C.  R.,  enclosing  your  last 
letter  to  her.  She  threw  herself  upon  me 
(luckily  the  space  between  us  softened  the  shock 
of  her  weight,  enabling  me  to  bear  up)  with  full 
118 


A   Year's    Letters 

confidence  and  gratitude.  I  could  explain  and 
advise;  I  could  support  and  refresh.  I  was  to 
say  whether  she  were  right  or  not.  To  Mr. 
Radworth  she  could  not  turn  for  sustenance  or 
counsel.  Ought  a  wife  to — would  a  wife  be 
justified  if  she  did — do  so  and  so  ?  Through  all 
this  overture  to  her  little  performance  one  could 
hear  thrill  the  tone  of  British  matronhood, 
tremulously  strong  and  tenderly  secure.  I  did 
think  it  was  all  over  with  some  of  you,  but  found 
rapid  relief.  She  put  it  to  me;  was  she  to 
notice  it?  Was  she  to  try  to  bring  you  to 
reason,  appealing  to  the  noble  mismanaged 
nature  of  you?  Could  she  treat  your  letter  as 
merely  insulting  or  insane  ?  My  private  answer 
came  at  once — Decidedly  she  could  not ;  but  I 
never  wrote  it  down — it  went  off  in  a  little  laugh, 
quietly.  She  wound  up  with  an  intimation  that 
I  was  thus  taken  into  confidence  in  order  to  give 
me  a  just  and  clear  idea  of  her  conduct  and  posi- 
tion ;  this  she  owed  to  herself  (the  debt  was  well 
paid,  and  I  receipted  it  by  return  of  post),  but 
she  would  rather  say  as  little  of  your  folly  as  she 
could  avoid.  Of  course,  she  put  it  twice  as 
prettily,  and  in  a  very  neat,  soft  way;  but  I 
give  you  the  real  upshot.  She  understood — 
Clara,  you  see,  did — that  I  felt  warmly  and 
fondly  towards  you ;  she  was  aware  that  I  could 
not  but  know  the  way  in  which  your  conduct 
119 


Love's   Cross-currents 

would  affect  her,  Clara ;  and  on  your  account,  on 
mine  (by  no  means,  I  need  not  say,  on  her  own), 
she  now  felt — various  things  in  the  sensation 
line  eminently  creditable  to  her. 

I  drew  breath  after  this,  and  then  laid  hold  of 
your  letter.  It  did  not  upset  me,  you  will  like 
to  hear;  indeed,  I  compliment  you  on  such  a 
"  selfless  "  and  stainless  form  of  devotion.  You 
play  Launcelot  in  a  suit  of  Arthur's  armour — or 
rather  in  his  new  clothes  after  the  well-known 
cut  of  modern  tailordom,  which  I  grieve  to  see 
are  already  cast  wear,  or  how  should  you  come 
by  them  ?  The  vividness  and  loftiness  of  view 
throughout  is  idyllic.  In  effect,  considering 
your  heat  of  head  and  violence  of  sentiment,  I 
think  you  behave — and  write — nicely,  nobly 
even,  if  you  like  to  be  told  so.  It  is  right  you 
should  take  things  in  the  way  you  do,  now  you 
are  first  plunged  into  them.  I  am  glad  you  do 
persuade  yourself  of  the  justice  and  reality  of 
your  passionate  paradoxes  and  crude  concep- 
tions about  social  rights  and  wrongs.  Naturally, 
being  in  love,  like  the  bad  specimen  you  are, 
you  find  institutions  criminal,  and  revolt  de- 
sirable. It  is  better,  taking  your  age  into  ac- 
count, than  trying  to  sneak  under  shelter  of 
them  within  reach  of  the  forbidden  fruit.  Storm 
the  place  if  you  can,  but  no  shooting  behind 
walls ;  a  good  plan  for  you,  as  I  am  glad  you  see. 
120 


A    Year's    Letters 

Altogether,  if  you  are  cracked,  I  should  say  you 
have  no  unsound  side;  a  fool  you  may  be,  but 
you  get  through  your  fooleries  like  a  gentleman. 
You  are  "  brave  enough  "  too,  as  you  said ;  it  was 
no  coward's  letter,  that  one.  I  should  not  for- 
give you  otherwise;  but  I  was  always  sure,  so 
far,  of  my  old  Redgie — you  never  had  any  of 
the  makings  of  a  coward  about  you.  I  like  the 
hopeless  single-sighted  daring  of  your  proposals ; 
also  your  way  of  feeling  what  disgrace  would  be. 
Except  in  the  vulgarest  surface  fashion,  she,  for 
one,  will  never  understand  that — never  get  to 
see  the  gist  of  your  first  few  lines,  for  instance, 
as  I  do ;  but  don't  you  get  on  that  ground  again, 
my  dear  boy.  I  like  you  all  the  better ;  and  that 
has  nothing  to  do  with  it,  you  see.  In  a  word — 
allow  that  you  were  outside  of  all  reason  in  writ- 
ing the  letter,  and  I  will  admit  you  have  kept 
well  inside  the  lines  of  honour.  So  far,  there  is 
nothing  to  forgive  (which  is  tant  soil  pen  lower- 
ing), and  not  much  to  punish  (which  is  at  worst 
painful).  There  is  a  school  copy  for  you ;  make 
me  an  exercise  in  C.'s  style  on  that  head. 

So  much  for  you ;  now  for  her  side ;  and  I  do 
beg  you  to  read  this  patiently,  and  do  me  justice 
as  far  as  you  can.  You  send  me  her  answer  to 
your  letter  in  a  rapture  of  admiration,  with  a 
view  of  altering  and  ennobling  my  estimate  of 
her,  which  you  know  to  be  hitherto  of  a 

121 


Love's   Cross-currents 

moderate  kind.  I  am  to  read  and  kindle,  ac- 
knowledge and  adore.  Is  she  not  noble?  Let 
us  see.  Ought  we  not  to  do  honour  to  such 
grand  honesty  and  purity,  such  a  sublime  good- 
ness? I  am  not  over  sure.  You  write  to  me 
as  to  your  first  best  friend  (and  effectively,  my 
dear  old  child,  I  don't  think  you  have  a  better 
one — I  do  feel  parental  on  your  score),  wishing 
to  set  my  mistakes  right  and  bring  me  to  an 
equitable  and  generous  tone  of  mind :  you  do  me 
the  honour  to  think  me  capable  of  conversion, 
worthy  to  worship  if  I  did  but  see  the  altar  as  it 
really  stands.  Being  such  as  I  am,  I  cannot  but 
appreciate  greatness  and  high  devotion  if  I  can 
but  be  brought  face  to  face  with  them.  That  I 
think  is  what  you  mean,  or  rather  what  you  had 
floating  in  your  head  when  you  wrote  to  me. 
Well,  we  must  hope  you  were  right.  I  am  no 
doubt  flattered;  and  will  try  to  be  deserving. 
Then,  I  must  now  see  things  as  you  do,  and 
admit  the  sublimities  of  behaviour  you  have 
made  out  in  C.  R.  to  be  real  discoveries,  and  not 
flies  in  your  telescope.  Her  noble  letter  to  you 
— a  letter  so  fearless  of  misconception,  so  gently 
worded,  so  devoted,  and  so  just — must  compel 
me  to  allow  this  much.  Wait;  you  shall  have 
my  poor  verdict  as  to  that  by-and-by. 

But  now,  what  have  you  to  say  about  her 
letter  to  me?    Why  do  you  suppose  she  sends 

122 


A   Year's    Letters 

me  your  epistle  to  her  ?  I  should  like  to  know. 
To  me,  honestly,  it  does  seem  like  a  resolution  to 
be  quit  of  all  personal  damage,  or  risk,  or  other 
moral  discomfort ;  also  it  does  seem  very  like  a 
keen  Apprehension — very  laudably  keen — of  a 
chance  given  her  to  right  herself,  or  to  raise  her- 
self in  my  judgment,  by  submitting  the  whole 
matter  to  me.  I,  as  arbitress,  must  decide,  on 
receiving  such  an  appeal  from  her,  backed  by 
such  proofs,  that  she  had  gone  on  splendidly — 
was  worthy  of  all  manner  of  praise — and  that 
you,  as  a  crazy  boy  in  the  "  salad  days"  of  sen- 
timent, were  alone  blameworthy.  Now,  frank- 
ly, do  you  believe  she  had  any  other  meaning  ? 
Why  need  she  appeal  to  me  at  all?  Certainly 
I  am  her  nearest  female  relation.  Aprbs?  And 
we  have  always  been  on  the  nicest  terms.  What 
then?  There  was  no  call  for  her  to  refer  to 
anybody.  She  is  old  enough,  at  all  events  (and 
that  she  will  hardly  deny,  or  insinuate  a  denial 
of),  to  manage  by  herself  for  herself.  Do  you 
imagine  she  wrote  on  your  account ;  applied  to 
me  for  your  sake  ?  I  do  not.  How  could  I  help 
her  ?  How  could  I  settle  you  ?  Favour  me  by 
considering  that.  One  thing  I  could  do,  and 
that  she  knew  well  enough.  I  could  change  my 
mind  as  to  her  (she  was  always  clever  enough  to 
know  what  my  honest  opinion  of  her  was)  and 
prevent,  by  simply  expressing  approval,  if  not 
123 


Love's   Cross-currents 

applause,  of  her,  any  chance  of  annoyance  she 
might  otherwise  have  run  the  risk  of.  Do  you 
see?  it  was  no  bad  stroke;  just  the  kind  of 
sharpness  you  know  I  always  gave  her  credit  for. 
Very  well  played  too  by  forwarding  me)  your 
letter;  she  was  aware  I  should  hardly  have  re- 
lied on  extracts  or  summaries  of  her  making, 
and  was  not  such  a  fool  as  to  appeal  to  me  in  a 
vague  virtuous  way.  Upon  the  whole,  as  it 
seemed  to  her,  she  could  not  fail  to  come  out 
admirably  from  the  test  in  my  eyes.  I  confess, 
for  the  sort  of  woman,  she  is  far-sighted  and 
sharp-sighted.  Only,  there  is  one  thing  to  be 
taken  into  account ;  that  I  have  known  both  her 
and  you  since  you  were  the  tiniest  thinking  ani- 
mals possible.  She  was  not  hard  upon  you; 
not  in  the  least.  I  was  to  draw  all  the  inferences 
for  myself. 

And  now  for  her  letter  to  you.  Luckily  I  had 
read  all  this  before  I  came  to  it.  And  after  all 
I  am  surprised ;  not  admiringly  by  any  means. 
I  looked  for  better  of  her,  considering.  As  she 
could  not  decently  assume  alarm  and  anger,  and 
was  not  the  woman  to  write  in  the  simple 
Anglican  fashion,  you  see  there  was  nothing  for 
it  but  to  mix  audacity  with  principle.  She  be- 
gins fairly  on  that  score :  the  opening  is  not  bad. 
But  how  could  you  swallow  the  manner?  Was 
there  ever  such  a  way  of  writing?  The  chaff, 
124 


A    Year's    Letters 

as  you  others  call  it,  is  so  poor,  so  ugly  and 
paltry — the  tone  of  rebuke  such  a  dead  failure ; 
the  air  of  sad  satisfaction  so  ill  put  on;  the 
touches  of  sentiment  so  wretchedly  coloured.  I 
wondej  she  could  do  no  better ;  she  gets  up  her 
effects  with  trouble  enough,  and  is  not  a  fool. 
As  to  the  magnanimous  bits — I  do  really  want 
to  know  if  it  has  never  crossed  your  mind  for  a 
second  that  they  were  absolute  impertinences  ? 
Were  you  quite  taken  in  by  that  talk  about 
"man  who  trusted  and  respected,"  "just  self- 
esteem,"  "used  generously,"  and  such  like? 
"Received  more  than  she  has  given"!  "Not 
the  only  creditor"! — why,  my  poor  boy,  I  tell 
you  again  she  married  the  man  tooth  and  nail; 
took  him  as  a  kite  takes  a  chaffinch.  Certainly 
he  wanted  her ;  but  as  to  having  wind  enough  to 
run  her  down!  It  upsets  me  to  write  about  it. 
Throw  him  over!  It  is  perfect  impudence  to 
imagine  she  can  make  any  living  creature  above 
twelve  suppose  that  regard  for  Ernest  keeps  her 
what  one  calls  a  good  wife.  She  looks  it  when 
you  come  upon  them  anywhere.  But  your  age 
has  no  eyes.  Sense  of  duty  ? — she  cares  for  the 
duties  and  devotions  no  more  than  I  should  care 
for  her  reputation  if  she  were  not  unhappily  my 
relative.  It  is  a  grievous  thing  to  see  you  tak- 
ing to  such  a  plat  (Target  rechaufie.  For  pure 
street  slang  it  is,  not  even  the  jargon  of  a  ra- 
125 


Love's   Cross-currents 

tional  society.  Do  you  know  what  ruin  means  ? 
or  compromise  even?  And  she  is  not  the 
woman,  by  nature  or  place,  to  risk  becoming 
tarte  in  the  slightest  degree.  She  is  thoroughly 
equable  and  cautious,  beyond  a  certain  point. 
The  landmark  is  a  good  bit  on  this  side  of  serious 
love-making;  hardly  outside  the  verge  of  com- 
mon sentiment.  I  assure  you  there  is  nothing 
to  be  made  of  her  in  any  other  way.  She  will 
keep  you  on  and  off  eternally  to  no  further 
purpose. 

Upon  the  whole  I  don't  know  that  her  letter 
could  well  have  been  a  worse  piece  of  work  than 
it  is.  Why,  if  you  would  but  observe  it,  she 
runs  over  into  quotation  before  she  gets  a  good 
start;  and  I  never  saw  this  modern  fashion  of 
mournful,  satirical,  introspective  writing  more 
ungraciously  assumed.  Her  sad  smiles  crack, 
and  show  the  enamel.  You  know  how  an  old 
wretch  with  her  face  glazed  looks  if  she  ventures 
to  laugh  or  cry  ?  at  least  you  can  imagine  if  you 
will  think  of  me  with  a  coating  of  varnish  on 
my  cheeks  and  lips,  listening  to  you  for  five 
minutes.  Well,  just  in  the  same  way  the  dried 
paint  of  her  style  splits  and  spoils  the  whole  look 
of  her  letter  at  the  tender  semi-rident  passages. 
It  is  too  miserably  palpable.  Don't  you  see  her 
trying  to  write  up  to  tradition  ? — say  what  she 
has  to  say  in  the  soft  pungent  manner  she  thinks 
126 


A    Year's    Letters 

proper  to  her  part  as  a  strong-minded,  clear- 
headed, somewhat  rapid  humourist  (don't  sup- 
pose I  meant  to  write  vapid),  with  a  touch  of 
the  high-minded  unpretentious  social  martyr? 
I  must  tell  you  a  bit  of  verse  I  kept  thinking  of 
while  I  ran  over  this  epistle  of  hers — Musset, 
you  know — 

Triste!  oh,  triste  en  v6rite"  ! 
— Triste,  abb6  ?     Vous  avez  le  vin  triste  ? 

If  you  had  but  the  wit  to  take  it  in  that  way, 
and  answer  her  accordingly !  Elle  a  I' amour  triste, 
like  most  of  her  sort.  For  you  must  allow  she  is 
making  love,  though  in  the  unpractical  way.  If 
I  could  but  see  an  end  of  this  dolorous  kind  of 
verbal  virtue  and  compromised  sentiment — this 
tender  tension  of  the  moral  machine,  worse  for 
the  nerves  than  the  headiest  draughts  of  raw 
sensation!  But  it  all  comes  of  your  books;  I 
thank  Heaven  we  were  reared  on  sounder  stuff. 
Confess  that  her  American  sermons  were  too 
much  for  you.  As  for  Aboulfadir,  I  never  was 
so  nearly  hysterical  since  the  decease  of  your 
grandfather.  I  actually  saw  her  looking  out  the 
bit.  And  your  initials  on  the  slip  of  paper,  you 
remember?  Oh,  you  utter  idiot! 

Allow  me  one  more  question  before  you  tear 
me  up.     Has  it  yet  struck  you  what  her  last 
127 


Love's   Cross-currents 

words  mean?  "You  can  never  show  this"; 
that  is,  in  Heaven's  name  forward  this  to  old 
Aunt  Midhurst  next  time  she  writes  spitefully 
about  me.  Now,  Reginald,  I  will  not  have  bad 
language.  You  know  she  meant  that;  the 
woman  capable  of  inditing  that  letter  must  be 
capable  of  thinking  it  good  enough  to  influence 
any  reader,  upset  any  prejudice.  You  were  to 
send  it  (you  must  admit  you  did),  and  it  was  to 
complete  the  grand  work  of  refutation  begun  a 
week  before  by  her  appeal  to  me  on  the  occasion 
of  your  letter.  Now,  I  do  hope  you  see :  it  was 
really  a  passable  stroke  of  wit.  The  whole  thing* 
was  cooked  with  a  view  to  its  being  served 
up  stewed  in  the  same  sauce.  No  doubt,  after 
the  great  conception,  her  brain  swelled  with  the 
sense  of  supreme  diplomacy.  Perhaps  a  man 
might  have  been  taken  in.  Evidently  a  boy  was. 
For  my  part  I  think  it  personally  insulting  to 
have  supposed  my  opinion  of  her  was  to  be 
affected  by  such  a  cheap  specimen  of  the  scene- 
shifter's  professional  knack.  I  see  as  well  as 
ever  how  she  wants  to  play  her  hand  out. 

I  give  you  a  month,  my  dear  boy,  to  get  over 
your  rage  at  me;  then  I  shall  expect  you  to 
behave  equably.  Till  that  time  I  suppose  I 
must  let  you  "chew  the  thrice-turned  cud  of 
wrath."  Otherwise  I  should  beg  you  not  to 
make  one  of  the  south-coast  party  I  hear  of. 
128 


A    Year's    Letters 

Also,  if  you  did  go,  to  stick  close  to  your  sister. 
As  it  is,  I  see  you  will  join  the  rest,  and  waste 
your  time  and  wits,  besides  sinking  chin-deep  in 
Platonic  sloughs  of  love.  Some  day  I  may 
succeed  in  pulling  you  out.  I  dare  say  it  ought 
to  be  a  comfort  to  me  to  reflect  that  you  are 
doing  no  great  harm ;  dirtier  you  might  get,  but 
scarcely  wetter.  The  quagwater  of  sentiment 
will  soak  you  to  the  bone.  In  earnest,  if  you 
go  to  Portsmouth  or  elsewhere  with  the  Cheynes, 
you  are  to  let  me  hear  now  and  then.  I  hope 
there  is  enough  love  or  liking  between  us  two  to 
stand  a  little  sharp  weather  between  whiles. 
Even  though  I  am  unbearably  vicious  and 
shamefully  stupid  with  regard  to  your  cousin, 
you  ought  to  try  and  overlook  it.  Recollect  my 
age,  I  entreat  you.  Can  you  expect  sound  judg- 
ment and  accurate  relish  of  the  right  thing  from 
such  an  old  critic  as  I  am  ?  You  might  as  well 
hope  to  make  me  see  her  beauty  with  your  eyes 
as  appreciate  her  goodness  in  your  fashion.  And 
then,  bad  as  I  may  be,  we  have  been  friends  too 
long  to  break  off.  If  I  had  ever  had  a  son  in  my 
younger  years  things  would  have  gone  differ- 
ently; as  it  was,  I  have  always  had  to  put  up 
with  you  instead.  A  bad  substitute  you  make, 
too;  but  somehow  one  gets  used  to  that.  If  I 
could  have  taken  you  with  me  from  the  first, 
and  reared  you  under  shelter  of  your  mother 
129 


Love's   Cross-currents 

(nice  work  I  should  have  had  of  it,  by-the-by; 
but  all  that  labour  fell  to  your  father's  share),  I 
would  have  broken  you  in  better.  I  would,  re- 
gardless of  all  expense  in  birch;  though  as  to 
that  the  Captain  did  his  duty  to  you  liberally,  I 
will  say.  When  you  were  born  I  could  not 
realize  your  mother's  age  to  myself  in  the  least ; 
I  myself  was  only  thirty-eight  (look  me  out  in 
the  dates,  if  you  won't  take  my  word  for  it), 
and  I  could  not  make  her  out  old  enough  to 
have  a  son.  Besides,  I  had  always  hungered 
after  a  boy.  So  I  took  to  you  from  the  begin- 
ning in  an  idiotic  way,  and  by  this  time  no 
doubt  my  weakness  is  developing  into  senile 
dotage.  I  don't  say  I  always  stood  by  you; 
but  you  must  remember,  my  dear  Redgie,  I 
could  not  always.  Your  ill-luck  was  mine  as  to 
that,  and  your  mother's  too.  I  wish  I  could 
have  kept  by  you  when  you  did  want  some  of 
us  at  hand;  not  that  I  suppose  the  softest- 
hearted  boy  feels  deeply  the  want  of  a  super- 
incumbent grandmother.  Still,  we  should  all 
have  got  on  the  better  for  it,  I  conceive.  No 
doubt,  too,  I  have  not  always  done  the  best  for 
you — only  my  best :  but  that  I  did  always  want 
to  do.  In  a  word,  you  know  I  love  you  as 
dearly  as  need  be :  and  you  may  as  well  put  up 
with  me  for  fault  of  a  better. 

Take  this  into  account  when  you  feel  furious, 
130 


A    Year's    Letters 

and  endeavour  to  make  the  best  you  can  of  me. 
I  perceive  this  letter  is  running  to  seed,  and 
my  tattle  fast  lapsing  into  twaddle.  After  all,  I 
don't  suppose  my  poor  shots  at  the  pathetic 
will  bring  down  much  game  of  the  sentimental 
kind.  I  might  bubble  and  boil  over  with  feeling 
long  enough  (I  suspect)  before  you  melted. 
Besides,  what  does  it  matter,  I  should  be  glad  to 
know  ?  However,  I  do  trust  you  will  be  as  good 
a  boy  as  you  can,  and  not  bring  me  to  an  un- 
timely grave  in  the  flower  of  my  wrinkles. 


XV 

LADY  CHEYNE  TO  FRANCIS 

Portsmouth.  May  28th. 

Do  not  write,  and  do  not  persist  in  trying  to 
speak  to  me  again.  If  you  care  for  any  of  us, 
you  will  not  stay  here.  I  can  do  nothing.  When 
my  husband  speaks  to  me,  it  turns  me  hot  and 
sick  with  fear.  I  am  ashamed  of  every  breath  I 
draw.  If  you  cannot  have  mercy,  do,  for  God's 
sake,'  think  of  your  own  honour.  If  you  stay 
here,  you  may  as  well  show  this  letter  at  once. 
I  wish  Cheyne  would  kill  me.  But,  even  if  he 
saw  what  I  am  thinking  of  when  I  look  at  him,  I 
believe  he  would  not.  He  is  so  fearfully  good  to 
me.  Oh,  if  I  were  to  die,  I  should  never  forget 
that !  I  don't  know  that  it  matters  much  what 
I  do.  I  have  broken  my  faith  to  him  in  thought, 
and,  if  justice  were  done,  I  ought  to  be  put  away 
from  him.  I  look  at  my  hand  while  I  write,  and 
think  it  ought  to  be  cut  off — my  ring  burns.  I 
cannot  think  how  things  can  be  as  dreadful  as 
they  are.  I  suppose,  if  I  can  live  through  this, 
I  shall  live  to  see  them  become  worse.  If  I 

132 


A  Year's    Letters 

could  but  see  what  to  do,  I  should  be  content 
with  any  wretchedness  ^  I  never  meant  to  be  a 
bad  wife.  When  I  woke  this  morning,  I  felt 
mad.  People  would  say  there  was  nothing  to 
repent  of ;  but  I  know.  It  is  worse  not  to  love 
him  than  it  would  be  to  leave  him.  What  have 
you  done  to  me  ?  for  I  never  lied  and  cheated  till 
now.  After  such  horrible  falsehood  and  treason 
I  don't  see  what  crime  is  to  stop  me.  If  I  had 
known  that  another  woman  was  like  me  at 
heart  I  could  not  have  borne  to  let  her  look  at 
me.  I  feel  as  if  I  must  go  away  and  hide  my- 
self. If  only  something  would  give  me  an 
excuse  for  going  home!  At  least,  if  I  must  stay 
with  my  husband,  I  implore  you  to  leave  me. 
Tell  your  sister  you  must  go.  Say  you  are 
tired.  Or  go  to  London  to-morrow  with  Cheyne 
and  don't  return.  You  can  so  easily  excuse 
yourself  from  the  sailing  party.  He  stays  in 
town  one  night,  and  comes  down  in  time  for  it 
the  day  after.  You  can  make  a  pretext  for  re- 
maining. If  you  have  any  pity,  you  will.  I 
have  nothing  to  help  me  in  the  world.  It  would 
kill  me  to  appeal  to  Reginald.  No  one  could 
understand.  I  am  sure,  if  you  knew  how  I  do 
want  and  trust  to  be  kept  right,  and  what  a 
fearful  life  I  have  of  it  with  this  sense  of  a  secret 
wearing  me  out,  you  would  be  sorry  for  me. 
And  if  you  love  me  so  much,  knowing  what  you 


Love's    Cross-currents 

know  now,  you  ought  to  be  sorry.  It  is  too  late 
for  me  to  get  happy  again,  but  I  may  come  not 
to  feel  such  unbearable  shame  as  I  do  now,  and 
shall  while  you  stay.  Promise  you  will  not  try 
to  see  me.  I  wonder  if  God  will  be  satisfied, 
supposing  you  never  do  see  me  again  ?  I  shall 
have  tried  to  be  good.  I  think  He  ought  to 
have  pity  on  me,  too.  But,  if  I  live  to  grow  old, 
I  shall  want  to  see  you  then. 


XVI 

MRS.  RADWORTH  TO  LADY  MIDHURST 

Portsmouth,  June  jd. 

You  will  have  heard,  my  dear  aunt,  of  our 
wretched  loss,  and  the  fearful  bereavement  of 
poor  Amicia.  I  wish  I  could  give  a  reassuring 
account  of  her,  but  she  appears  to  be  quite 
broken ;  it  is  miserable  to  see  her.  She  sits  for 
whole  hours  in  her  own  room ;  I  did  hope  at  first 
it  was  to  seek  the  consolation  of  prayer,  but  that 
comfort,  I  fear  greatly,  she  is  not  yet  capable  of 
feeling.  She  looks  quite  like  death.  I  suggested 
she  should  go  into  the  room  where  he  is  lying, 
and  take  her  last  look  of  him,  but  she  turned 
absolutely  whiter  than  she  was,  shuddered,  and 
seemed  quite  sick.  My  brother  is  hardly  less 
overcome.  On  a  servant  addressing  him  yester- 
day by  his  title,  he  actually  sank  into  a  chair, 
and  gave  way  in  a  manner  which  I  could  not  but 
regret.  I  am  certain  he  would  sacrifice  worlds 
to  restore  his  cousin  to  life. 

Mr.  Harewood  has  been  throughout  most 
kind.  He  has  done  all  that  the  best  friend  of 


Love's   Cross-currents 

our  poor  child  could  do.  Amicia  will  hardly  see 
any  one  but  him.  Mr.  Rad worth  offered  to 
relieve  him  of  some  part  of  the  wretched  trouble 
and  business  he  has  undertaken  to  spare  dear 
Amicia  (Francis,  I  must  tell  you,  seems  in- 
capable of  moving) ;  but  he  refuses  to  share  it. 
I  cannot  express  to  you  the  admiration  we  all 
feel  for  his  beautiful  management  of  her,  poor 
child.  Who  could  remember  at  such  a  time  the 
former  folly  which  he  must  himself  have  for- 
gotten? I  am  constantly  reminded  that  you 
alone  always  did  him  justice. 

I  suppose  you  will  wish  to  know  the  sad 
detail,  and  it  had  better  perhaps  be  given  at 
once  by  me  than  by  another.  We  had  decided, 
as  you  know,  to  take  Saturday  last  as  the  day 
of  our  projected  sail.  Francis  seemed  curiously 
unwilling  to  go  at  first,  and  it  was  only  at  poor 
Lord  Cheyne's  repeated  request  that  he  assented. 
Amicia  was  very  quiet,  and  I  thought  rather 
depressed — I  have  no  doubt  in  consequence  of 
the  sudden  reaction  from  a  continued  strain  on 
her  spirits.  It  was  a  very  dull  party  altogether ; 
only  Mr.  Harewood  and  poor  Edmund  seemed 
to  have  any  spirits  to  enjoy  it.  They  talked 
a  great  deal,  especially  about  summer  plans. 
Quite  suddenly,  we  heard  ahead  what  I  fancied 
was  the  noise  of  the  overfalls,  and  began  passing 
out  of  smooth  water.  I  thought  it  looked 
136 


A  Year's    Letters 

dangerous,  but  they  would  put  inshore.  Feeling 
the  waves  run  rapidly  a  little  higher  and  higher, 
I  said  something  to  Amicia,  who  I  knew  was  a 
bad  sailor,  and  as  she  scarcely  answered,  but  lay 
back  in  the  boat,  I  feared  the  discomfort  to  her 
of  rough  water  had  begun.  I  stooped  forward, 
as  well  as  I  remember,  to  sign  to  my  husband  to 
make  Lord  Cheyne  look  at  her.  Ernest,  in  his 
nervous  absent  way,  failed  to  catch  my  mean- 
ing, and,  in  rising  to  speak  to  me,  was  pitched 
forwards  with  a  jerk,  and  came  full  against  Mr. 
Harewood,  who  was  helping  to  shift  a  sail.  Then 
I  really  saw  nothing  more  but  that  the  sail-yard 
(is  it  a  yard  they  call  the  bit  of  wood  a  sail  is 
tied  to?1)  swung  round,  and  I  screamed  and 
caught  hold  of  Amicia,  and  next  second  I  saw 
poor  Lord  Cheyne  in  the  water.  He  caught  at 
Francis,  who  was  next  him,  and  missed.  Mr. 
Harewood  jumped  in  after  him  with  his  coat  on, 
but  he  could  hardly  make  the  least  way  because 
of  the  ground  swell.  They  had  to  pull  him  in 
again  almost  stifled  and  I  feared  insensible. 
Before  I  came  to  myself  so  as  to  see  what  any- 
body was  doing,  they  had  got  the  body  on  board 
and  Francis  and  the  sailors  and  Ernest  were 
trying  to  revive  it.  Amicia,  who  was  shaking 

1  NOTE  (  ?  by  Lady  Midhurst) . — "  Too  ingenuous  by  half 
for  the  situation." 

137 


Love's   Cross-currents 

dreadfully,  kept  hold  of  her  brother,  chafing 
and  kissing  his  face  and  hands.  How  we  ever 
got  back  God  knows.  Amicia  seemed  quite 
stunned ;  she  never  so  much  as  touched  her  hus- 
band's hand.  When  we  came  to  get  out,  I 
thought  Francis  and  my  husband  would  have 
had  to  support  her,  but  Mr.  Radworth  was  quite 
useless,  and  poor  Francis  could  not  bear  even 
to  look  at  her  misery.  So  Mr.  Harewood  (who 
was  really  unfit  to  walk  himself)  and  one  of  the 
sailors  had  to  carry  her  up  to  the  house.  The 
funeral  takes  place  to-morrow;  I  trust  my 
brother  may  be  able  to  attend,  but  really  he 
seems  at  times  perfectly  broken  down  in  health 
and  everything. 


XVII 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  LADY  CHEYNE 

Ashton  Hildred.  June  6th. 

MY  DEAREST  CHILD: 

I  WOULD  not  let  your  mother  go,  or  she  would 
have  been  with  you  before  this.  It  must  have 
done  her  harm.  She  is  not  well  enough  even  to 
write ;  we  have  had  to  take  her  in  hand.  It  is 
a  bad  time  for  us  all;  we  must  live  it  down  as 
we  best  may.  I  thought  of  advising  your  father 
to  be  with  you  before  the  funeral,  but  she  would 
hardly  like  him  to  leave  her.  I  shall  start  my- 
self to-morrow,  and  take  you  home  with  me. 
You  had  better  not  go  to  Lidcombe.  With  us 
you  will  at  least  have  thorough  quiet,  and  time 
to  recover  by  degrees.  Now  no  doubt  you  are 
past  being  talked  to.  I  only  hope  those  people 
do  their  best  for  you.  It  is  well  now  that  noth- 
ing ever  came  between  poor  Cheyne  and  you. 
I  suppose  you  have  had  as  quiet  and  unbroken  a 
time  since  your  marriage  as  any  one  ever  does 
get.  The  change  is  sharp ;  all  changes  are  that 
turn  upon  a  death.  I  know,  too,  that  he  loved 


Love's   Cross-currents 

you  very  truly,  and  was  always  good,  just,  and 
tender  to  all  he  knew;  a  man  to  be  seriously 
and  widely  regretted.  It  may  be  that  you  are 
just  now  inclining  to  believe  you  will  never  get 
over  the  pain  of  such  a  loss.  Now,  in  my  life,  I 
have  lost  many  people  and  many  things  I  would 
have  given  much  to  keep.  I  have  repented  and 
lamented  much  that  I  have  done,  and  more  that 
has  happened  to  me — sometimes  through  my 
own  fault.  But  one  thing  I  do  know,  and  would 
have  you  lay  to  heart — that  nobody  living  need 
retain  in  his  dictionary  the  word  irretrievable. 
Strike  it  out,  I  advise  you ;  I  erased  it  from  mine 
long  ago.  Self-reproach  and  the  analysis  of 
regret  are  most  idle  things.  Abstain  at  least 
from  confidences  and  complaints.  Bear  what 
you  have  to  bear  steadily,  with  locked  teeth  as  it 
were.  This  minute  may  be  even  graver  than  you 
think.  I  know  how  expansion  follows  on  the 
thaw  of  sudden  sorrow.  I  am  always  ready  to 
hear  and  help  you  to  the  best  of  my  poor  old 
powers ;  but,  even  to  me,  I  would  not  have  you 
overflow  too  much.  I  write  in  all  kindness  and 
love  to  you,  my  poor  child,  and  I  know  my  sort 
of  counselling  is  harsh,  heathen,  mundane — I 
can  hardly  help  your  way  of  looking  at  it.  No 
one  is  sorrier  than  I  am ;  no  one  would  give  more 
to  recall  irrevocable  things.  But  once  again  I 
assure  you  what  cannot  be  recalled  may  be 
140 


A    Year's    Letters 

retrieved.  Only  the  retrieving  must  come  from 
you:  show  honour  and  regard  to  Cheyne's 
memory  by  controlling  and  respecting  yourself 
to  begin  with.  If  you  have  some  floating  desire 
to  make  atonement  of  any  kind,  atone  in  that 
way.  But  if  you  have  any  such  feeling,  there  is 
a  morbid  nerve ;  you  should  labour  to  deaden 
it — by  no  means  to  stimulate. 

I  am  more  thankful  than  I  can  say  that  you 
have  Reginald  with  you.  The  boy  is  affection- 
ate, and  not  of  an  unhealthy  nature.  He  ought 
to  be  of  use  and  comfort ;  I  am  sure  he  is  good 
for  you.  I  can  well  believe  you  see  no  more  of 
others  than  you  can  help.  It  was  nice  for  me  to 
hear  from  any  quarter  that  Redgie  had  done  his 
part  well.  There  ought  always  to  be  a  bond 
between  you  two.  Family  ties  are  invaluable — 
where  they  are  anything:  and  neither  of  you 
could  have  a  better  stay  in  any  time  of  need 
than  the  other.  As  to  friendships  of  a  serious 
nature  (very  deeply  serious  that  is)  between 
man  and  man,  or  between  woman  and  woman, 
I  have  no  strong  belief  in  their  existence — none 
whatever  in  their  possible  usefulness. 

I  shall  be  with  you  in  two  days  at  latest ;  will 
you  understand  if  I  ask  you  to  wait  for  me  ?  Till 
I  come,  do  nothing  for  yourself ;  say  nothing  to 
anybody.  For  your  mother's  sake  and  mine, 
who  have  some  claims  to  be  thought  of — I  add 
141 


Love's   Cross-currents 

no  other  name;  I  don't  want  to  appeal  on  any 
grounds  but  these;  but  you  know  why  you 
should  spare  her.  Restraint  and  reserve  at 
present  will  be  well  made  up  to  you  afterwards. 
I  can  imagine  you  may  want  some  one  to  lean 
upon;  I  dare  say  it  is  hard  now  to  be  shut  up 
and  self-reliant ;  but  I  would  not  on  any  account 
have  you  expand  in  a  wrong  direction.  I  could 
wish  to  write  you  a  softer-toned  letter  of  com- 
fort than  this ;  but  one  thing  I  must  say :  do  not 
let  your  grief  hurry  you  even  for  one  minute 
beyond  the  reach  of  advice.  As  for  comfort, 
my  dearest  child,  what  can  I  well  say  ?  I  have 
always  hated  condolence  myself:  where  it  is 
anything,  it  is  bad — helpless  and  senseless  at 
best.  A  grievous  thing  has  happened;  we  can 
say  no  more  when  all  comment  has  been  run 
through.  To  us  for  some  time — I  say  to  us, 
callous  as  you  are  now  thinking  me — the  loss 
and  misfortune  will  seem  even  greater  than  they 
are.  You  have  the  worst  of  it.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  not  the  end  of  all  things.  The  world  will 
dispense  with  us  some  day ;  but  it  shall  not  while 
we  can  hold  out.  Things  must  go  on  when  we 
have  dropped  off ;  but,  while  we  can,  let  us  keep 
up  with  life.  These  are  cold  scraps  enough  to 
feed  regret  with;  but  they  are  at  least  solid  of 
their  kind,  which  is  more  than  I  would  say  of 
some  warmer  and  lighter  sorts  of  moral  diet. 
142 


A   Year's    Letters 

As  for  what  is  called  spiritual  comfort,  I  would 
have  you  by  all  means  take  and  use  it,  if  you 
can  get  it,  and  if  the  flavour  of  it  is  natural  to 
you:  I  know  the  way  most  people  have  of  prof- 
fering and  pressing  it  upon  one ;  for  my  part  I 
never  pretended  to  deal  in  it.  I  know  only  what 
I  think  and  feel  myself ;  I  do  not  profess  to  keep 
moral  medicines  on  hand  against  a  time  of 
sickness.  Heaven  knows  I  would  give  much,  or 
do  much,  or  bear  much,  to  heal  you.  But  indeed 
at  these  times.when  one  must  speak  (as  I  have 
now  to  do),  I  prefer  things  of  the  cold  sharp 
taste  to  the  faint  tepid  mixtures  of  decocted  sen- 
timent which  religious  or  verbose  people  serve 
out  so  largely  and  cheaply.  I  may  be  the  worse 
comforter  for  this ;  but  to  me  comments,  either 
pious  or  tender,  usually  leave  a  sickly  sense  after 
them,  as  of  some  flat,  unwholesome  drug.  I  am 
not  preaching  paganism ;  I  would  have  you  seek 
all  reasonable  comfort  or  support  wherever  it 
seems  good  to  you.  But  I  for  one  cannot  write 
or  talk  about  hopes  of  reunion,  better  life, 
expiation,  faith,  and  such  other  things.  I  believe 
that  those  who  cannot  support  themselves  can- 
not be  supported.  Those  who  say  they  are  up- 
held by  faith  say  they  are  upheld  by  a  kind  of 
energy  natural  to  them.  This  I  do  entirely 
allow;  and  a  good  working  quality  it  is.  But 
any  one  who  is  utterly  without  self-reliance  will 
143 


Love's   Cross-currents 

collapse.  There  can  be  nothing  capable  of 
helping  the  helpless.  So  you  must  be  satisfied 
with  the  best  I  can  give  you  in  the  way  of 
comfort. 

I  see  well  enough  that  I  am  heathenish  and 
hard.  But  I  know  your  trouble  is  a  great  one, 
and  I  will  not  play  with  it.  It  would  be  easy  to 
write  after  the  received  models,  if  the  thing  were 
not  so  serious.  Time  will  help  us;  there  is  no 
other  certain  help.  Some  day  when  you  are  old 
enough  to  reconsider  past  sorrows  you  will  admit 
that  there  was  a  touch  of  truth  in  my  shreds  of 
pagan  consolation.  Stoicism  is  not  an  exploded 
system  of  faith.  It  may  be  available  still  when 
resignation  in  the  modern  sense  breaks  down. 
Resign  yourself  by  all  means  to  the  unavoidable ; 
take  patiently  what  will  come;  refuse  yourself 
the  relaxation  of  complaint.  Have  as  little  as 
you  can  to  do  with  fear,  or  repentance,  or  retro- 
spection of  any  kind.  Fear  is  unprofitable;  to 
look  back  will  weaken  your  head.  As  to  repent- 
ance, it  never  did  good  or  undid  harm.  Do  not 
persuade  yourself  either  that  your  endurance  of 
things  that  are  is  in  any  way  a  sacrifice  of  Chris- 
tian resignation  offered  to  the  supreme  powers. 
That  is  the  unhealthy  side  of  patience ;  the  forti- 
tude of  the  feeble.  Be  content  to  endure  without 
pluming  yourself  on  a  sense  of  submission.  For, 
indeed,  submission  without  compulsion  can 
144 


A   Year's    Letters 

never  be  anything  but  the  vicious  virtue  of  slug- 
gards. We  submit  because  we  must,  and  had 
better  not  flatter  ourselves  with  the  fancy  that 
we  submit  out  of  goodness.  If  we  could  fight 
our  fate  we  all  would.  It  is  not  the  desire  to 
resist  that  we  fail  in,  but  the  means ;  we  have 
no  fighting  material.  It  would  not  be  rebellion, 
but  pure  idiocy  or  lunacy,  for  us  to  begin 
spluttering  and  kicking  against  the  pricks ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  grovel  and  blubber.  It  is  a  child's  game 
to  play  at  making  a  virtue  of  necessity.  I  say 
that  if  we  could  rebel  against  what  happens  to 
us  we  would  rebel.  Christian  or  heathen,  no 
man  would  really  submit  to  sorrow  if  he  could 
help  it.  Neither  you  nor  I  would,  and  there- 
fore do  not  try  to  believe  you  are  resigned,  as 
people  call  it,  to  God's  will  in  the  strict  religious 
sense.  For  if  submission  means  anything  that 
a  Stoic  had  not  it  means  something  that  no  one 
ever  had  or  ought  to  have.  Courage,  taking 
the  word  how  you  will,  I  have  always  put  at  the 
head  of  the  virtues.  Any  sort  of  faith  or  humil- 
ity that  interferes  with  it,  or  impairs  its  work- 
ing power,  I  have  no  belief  in. 

But,   above  all  things,   I  would  have  you 

always  keep  as  much  as  you  can  of  liberty. 

Give  up  all  for  that ;  sacrifice  it  to  nothing — to 

no  religious  theory,  to  no  moral  precept.     All 

US 


Love's    Cross-currents 

slavishness,  whether  of  body  or  of  spirit,  leaves 
a  taint  where  it  touches.  It  is  as  bad  to  be 
servile  to  God  as  it  is  to  be  servile  to  man. 
Accept  what  you  must  accept,  and  dbey  where 
you  must  obey;  but  make  no  pretence  of  a 
"freewill  offering."  That  sort  of  phrase  and 
that  sort  of  feeling  I  hold  in  real  abhorrence. 
Weak  people  and  cowards  play  with  such  ex- 
pressions and  sentiments  just  as  children  do 
with  tin  soldiers.  It  is  their  substitute  for  seri- 
ous fighting;  because  they  cannot  struggle,  they 
say  and  believe  they  would  not  if  they  could; 
most  falsely.  Give  in  to  no  such  fancies :  cherish 
no  such  forms  of  thought.  Liberty  and  courage 
of  spirit  are  better  worth  keeping  than  any 
indulgence  in  hope  and  penitence.  I  suppose 
this  tone  of  talk  is  unchristian;  I  know  it  is 
wholesome  though,  for  all  that.  God  knows, 
our  scope  of  possible  freedom  is  poor  and  small 
enough ;  that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  labour 
to  circumscribe  it  further.  We  are  beaten  upon 
by  necessity  every  day  of  our  lives:  we  cannot 
get  quit  of  circumstances ;  we  cannot  better  the 
capacities  born  with  us ;  all  the  less  on  that  very 
account  need  we  try  to  impair  them.  Because 
we  are  all  purblind,  more  or  less,  must  we  pluck 
out  our  eyes  to  be  led  about  by  the  ear  ?  Is  it 
any  comfort,  when  we  look  through  spectacles 
that  show  us  nothing  but  shapeless  blurs  and 
146 


A   Year's    Letters 

blots,  to  be  told  we  ought  to  see  clearly  by  their 
help,  and  must  at  least  take  it  for  granted  that 
others  do?  Rather  I  would  have  you  endure 
as  much  as  you  can,  and  hope  for  as  little  as 
you  can.  All  wise  and  sober  courage  ends  in 
that.  Do,  in  Heaven's  name,  try  to  keep  free 
of  false  hopes  and  feeble  fears.  Face  things  as 
they  are ;  think  for  yourself  when  you  think  of 
life  and  death,  joy  and  sorrow,  right  and  wrong. 
These  things  are  dark  by  the  nature  of  them; 
it  is  useless  saying  they  can  be  lit  up  by  a  candle 
held  in  your  eyes.  You  are  only  the  blinder; 
they  are  none  the  clearer.  What  liberty  to 
act  and  think  is  left  us,  let  us  keep  fast  hold  of; 
what  we  cannot  have,  let  us  agree  to  live  with- 
out. 

This  is  a  strange  funeral  sermon  for  me  to 
preach  to  you  across  a  grave  so  suddenly  opened. 
Only  once  or  twice  in  the  many  years  of  one's 
life  the  time  comes  for  speaking  out,  if  one  will 
see  it — these  are  matters  I  seldom  think  over 
and  never  talk  about,  wishing  to  keep  my  head 
and  eyes  clear.  But  my  mind  was  made  up,  if 
I  did  write  to  you,  to  keep  back  nothing  I  had 
to  say,  and  affect  nothing  I  had  not  to  say. 
You  are  worth  counsel  and  help,  such  as  I  can 
give ;  the  occasion,  too,  is  worth  open  and  truth- 
ful speech.  I  do  not  pray  that  you  may  have 
strength  sent  you;  you  must  take  your  own 


Love's    Cross-currents 

share  of  work  and  endurance ;  you  have  to  make 
your  strength  for  yourself.  I  say  again,  time 
will  help  you,  and  we  should  survive  this  among 
other  lamentable  things.  But  for  me,  now  that 
I  have  said  my  say  and  prayed  my  prayers  over 
the  dead,  I  shall  not  preach  on  this  text  again. 
What  my  love  and  thought  for  you  can  do  in 
the  way  of  honest  help  has  been  done.  If  you 
want  more  in  this  time  of  your  danger  and 
sorrow,  you  will  not  ask  it  of  me^  Suppose  I 
were  now  dying,  I  could  not  add  a  word  more  to 
leave  you  by  way  of  comfort  or  comment.  For 
once  I  have  written  fully,  and  shown  you  what 
I  really  think  and  look  for  as  to  these  matters. 
I  shall  never  open  up  again  in  the  same  way  to 
any  one  while  I  live.  I  have  unpacked  my  bag 
for  you;  now  I  put  it  away  for  good,  under  lock 
and  seal.  When  we  meet,  and  as  long  as  we  live 
together,  let  us  do  the  best  we  can  in  silence. 

I  add  no  message ;  all  that  would  be  said  you 
know  without  that.  It  could  only  weaken  you 
and  sharpen  the  pain  of  the  day  to  you  to  receive 
tender  words  and  soft  phrases  copied  out  to  no 
purpose.  I  have  told  your  mother  she  had  best 
not  write — forgive  me  if  you  regret  it.  Indeed,  I 
doubt  whether  she  would  have  tried.  When  you 
are  here,  we  must  all  manage  to  gain  in  strength 
and  sense.  If  this  letter  of  mine  strikes  cold 
upon  your  sorrow,  I  can  but  hope  you  may  find, 
148 


A  Year's   Letters 

in  good  time,  something  or  some  one  able  really 
to  soothe  and  support  you  better  than  I  can. 
Meantime,  if  you  read  it  with  patience,  I  hope  it 
may  help  to  settle  you ;  save  you  from  the  useless 
self-torture  of  penitent  perplexity  and  the  mis- 
ery of  a  petted  retrospect;  and  lighten  your 
head,  at  all  events,  of  some  worry,  if  it  cannot 
just  now  affect  you  at  heart  for  the  better,  as 
other  comforters  might  profess  to  do.  No  one, 
to  my  thinking,  can  "help  the  heart" — wise 
phrase  of  a  wiser  poet  than  your  brother  ever 
will  make. 

There,  I  suppose,  you  must  suffer  at  present. 
How  things  are  to  go  with  us  later  on,  I  cannot 
say  or  see.  But  while  you  live,  and  whatever 
you  do,  believe  at  least  in  the  love  I  have  for 
you. 


XVIII 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  FRANCIS  CHEYNE 

Ashton  Hildred.  July  28th. 

MY  DEAR  FRANK: 

I  WOULD  not  have  you  write  to  Amicia  about 
those  minor  arrangements  you  speak  of.  Mat- 
ters had  better  be  settled  with  me,  or  by  means 
of  your  sister.  We  know  you  will  do  all  you  can 
in  the  best  possible  way ;  and  she  is  not  yet  well 
enough  to  bear  worry.  I  fear,  indeed,  that  she 
has  more  to  bear  physically  than  we  had  thought 
of.  She  keeps  getting  daily  more  white  and 
wretched,  and  we  hardly  know  how  to  handle 
her.  When  she  arrived,  she  had  a  sort  of 
nervous  look  of  strength,  which  begins  now  to 
fail  her  completely;  spoke  little,  except  to  me, 
but  fed  and  slept  like  a  rationally  afflicted  per- 
son. Now  I  see  her  get  purplish  about  the  eyes, 
and  her  cheeks  going  in  perceptibly.  It  will 
take  years  to  set  her  straight  if  this  is  to  go  on. 
She  is  past  all  medicine  of  mine.  I  dare  say 
she  will  begin  to  develope  a  spiritual  tendency — 
she  reads  the  unwholesomest  books.  The  truth 
150 


A   Year's    Letters 

is,  she  is  far  too  young  to  be  a  widow.  That 
grey  and  cynical  condition  of  life  sits  well  only 
upon  shoulders  of  thirty  or  forty.  She  is  between 
shadow  and  sun,  in  the  dampest  place  there  is. 
Mist  and  dew  begin  to  tell  upon  her  brain :  there 
is  the  stuff  of  a  conversion  in  her  just  now.  I 
tell  you  this  because  you  have  known  her  so 
well,  and  were  such  good  friends  with  her 'that 
you  will  be  able  to  take  my  meaning.  I  am 
sure  you  do  want  to  hear,  and  sincerely  wish 
all  things  right  with  her  again.  I  hope  they 
may  be  in  time — we  must  take  them  as  they 
are  now.  Meantime,  it  is  piteous  enough  to  see 
her.  She  comes  daily  to  sit  with  me  for  hours, 
and  has  a  way  of  looking  up  and  sighing  be- 
tween whiles  which  is  grievous  to  me.  Again, 
at  times,  I  seem  to  have  glimpses  of  some 
avowal  or  appeal  risen  almost  to  her  lips,  and 
as  suddenly  resigned.  Her  words  have  tears 
in  them  somehow,  even  when  she  talks  peace- 
ably. I  had  no  suspicion  of  so  deep  or  keen  a 
regard  on  her  part.  Our  poor  Edmund  can 
hardly  have  given  her  as  much,  one  would  say. 
But  who  knows  what  he  had  in  him  ?  He  was 
strange  always,  with  his  gentle  cold  manner, 
and  had  rare  qualities.  "I  forget  things,"  she 
said  one  day  on  a  sudden  to  me — I  never  know 
what  she  does  think  of.  Another  time,  "  I  wish 
one  could  see  backwards." 
15* 


Love's   Cross-currents 

I  am  glad  you  went  at  once  to  Lidcombe ;  you 
will  make  them  a  good  lord  there.  Edmund 
always  hung  loose  on  the  place.  Some  day,  I 
suppose,  you  will  have  to  marry,  but  you  are  full 
young  as  yet.  I  should  like  to  see  what  the 
house  will  hold  in  ten  years'  time,  but  do  not 
much  expect  the  luck.  Early  deaths  age  people 
who  hear  of  them.  I  feel  the  greyer  for  this 
month's  work.  They  tell  me  you  have  had 
Captain  Harewood  to  help  you  in  settling  down 
and  summing-up.  As  he  was,  in  a  manner,  your 
guardian  for  a  year  or  two  after  the  death  of 
your  father,  I  suppose  he  is  the  man  for  such 
work.  I  believe  he  had  always  a  good  clear 
head  and  practical  wit.  That  wretched  boy  of 
his  doubtless  lost  his  chance  of  inheriting  it 
through  my  fault.  We  came  in  there  and  spoilt 
the  blood.  I  fancy  you  have  something  of  the 
same  good  gift.  It  is  one  I  have  always  covet- 
ed, and  always  failed  of,  that  ready  and  steady 
capacity  for  decisive  work.  Your  mother  was  a 
godsend  to  our  family — we  never  had  the  least 
touch  of  active  sense  among  us.  All  my 
brother's,  now,  was  loose  muddled  good  sense, 
running  over  into  nonsense  when  he  fell  to  work. 
The  worst  of  him  was  his  tendency  to  vacuous 
verbose  talk;  he  was  nearly  as  long-breathed, 
and  as  vague  in  his  chatter,  as  I  am.  Not  such 
a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of  correspondents,  though,  I 
152 


A   Year's    Letters 

imagine.  I  hear  Reginald  is  with  his  father  at 
Plessey.  The  place  is  just  endurable  in  these 
hot  months,  but  always  gives  me  a  notion  of 
thawing-time  and  webbed  feet.  It  is  vexatious, 
not  being  able  to  send  for  the  boy  here.  Amy 
would  be  all  the  better  for  him;  but  of  course 
it  is  past  looking  for.  She  talks  of  him  now 
and  then  in  a  very  tender  and  grateful  way. 
"Redgie  was  very  good;  I  wonder  what  his 
wife  will  be?"  she  said,  once.  There  was  no 
chance  of  such  luck  for  him  in  sight,  I  suggest- 
ed ;  but  she  turned  to  me  with  singular  eyes,  and 
said,  "  I  should  like  her  if  she  would  marry  him 
soon."  She  has  a  carte  de  visile  of  him,  which 
is  made  much  of.  Her  husband  never  would  sit 
for  one,  I  recollect.  It  seems  Redgie  was  useful 
when  nobody  else  could  have  done  much  good. 
Those  few  days  were,  hideous.  I  never  shall 
forget  that  white  dried  face  of  hers,  and  the 
heavy  look  of  all  her  limbs.  Poor  child,  I  had 
to  talk  her  into  tears.  She  had  the  ways  of  old 
people  for  some  time  after.  Even  now  she  is 
bad  enough;  worse,  as  I  told  you,  in  some 
things.  It  is  great  amiability  to  express  such 
feeling  about  turning  her  out  as  you  do.  No 
help  for  it,  you  know.  She  would  have  had 
more  to  bear  at  Lidcombe;  and  you  will  soon 
fit  well  into  the  old  place.  Very  fond  of  it  she 
certainly  was,  and  some  day,  perhaps,  I  may 


Love's    Cross-currents 

take  her  over  to  see  you.  That  will  be  years 
hence.  Your  wife  must  be  good  to  the  dowagers 
— I  dare  say  she  will.  It  will  be  curious  to  meet 
there  anyhow.  One  thing  is  a  pity,  that  Amicia 
can  never  have  a  child  to  keep  her  company; 
for  I  think  she  can  hardly  marry  again,  young  as 
she  is.  A  daughter  would  have  done  you  no 
harm,  and  left  her  with  one  side  of  life  filled  up 
— she  would  have  made  a  perfect  mother.  I 
used  to  think  she  had  much  of  the  social  type  of 
Englishwoman.  It  is  such  a  broken-up  sort  of 
life  that  one  anticipates  for  her.  And  there 
was  such  a  tender  eager  delight  in  affection, 
such  a  soft  and  warm  spirit,  such  pure  pleasure 
in  being  and  doing  good — it  is  the  most  deli- 
cious nature  I  know.  But  you  know  her,  too. 
Love  to  your  sister  from  both,  if  she  is  still  with 
you.  Or  did  they  leave  when  the  Plessey  people 
went? 


XIX 

FRANCIS  CHEYNE  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

Lidcombe,  Aug.  z6th. 

I  DO  not  see  how  I  can  possibly  stay  here.  If 
you  had  not  gone  so  soon  we  might  have  got  on ; 
now  it  is  unbearable.  There  is  a  network  of 
lawyers'  and  over-lookers'  business  to  be  got 
through  still.  I  go  about  the  place  like  a  thief, 
and  people  throw  the  title  in  my  face  like  a 
buffet  at  every  turn.  And  I  keep  thinking  of 
Amicia;  her  rooms  have  the  sound  of  her  in 
them.  I  went  down  to  the  lake  at  sunset  and 
took  a  pull  by  myself.  The  noise  of  the  water 
running  off  and  drawing  under  was  like  some 
one  that  sobs  and  chokes.  I  went  home  out  of 
all  temper  with  things.  And  there  was  a  letter 
waiting  from  Aunt  Midhurst  that  would  have 
made  one  half  mad  at  the  best  of  times.  She 
is  right  to  strike  if  she  pleases;  but  her  sort  of 
talk  hits  hard.  I  felt  hot  and  sick  with  the 
sense  of  meanness  when  I  had  done.  These 
things  are  the  worst  one  has  to  bear.  She  tells 
me  what  to  do ;  gives  news  of  Amicia  that  would 
'55 


Love's   Cross-currents 

kill  one  to  think  of,  if  thought  did  kill;  mixes 
allusions  in  a  way  that  she  only  could  have  the 
heart  to  do.  I  believe  she  knows  or  thinks  the 
worst,  and  always  has.  And  there  is  nothing 
one  can  say  in  reply  to  her.  It  is  horrid  to  lie 
at  her  mercy  as  we  do.  Their  life  in  that  house 
must  be  intolerable.  I  can  see  Amy  sitting 
silent  under  her  eyes  and  talk;  sick  and  silent, 
without  crying,  like  a  woman  held  fast  and 
forced  to  look  on  while  some  one  else  was  under 
torture.  I  know  so  well  by  myself  how  she 
must  take  the  suffering;  with  a  blind,  bruised 
soul,  and  a  sort  of  painful  wonder  and  pity; 
divided  from  herself;  beaten  and  broken  down 
and  tired  out.  If  she  were  to  go  mad  I  should 
know  why.  And  I  cannot  come  near  her,  and 
you  know  how  I  love  her.  I  would  kill  myself 
to  save  her  pain,  and  I  know  she  is  in  pain  hour- 
ly, and  I  sit  here  where  she  used  to  be.  If  I  had 
never  been  born  at  all  she  would  have  been 
happy  enough  with  her  husband  alive.  I  tell 
you,  God  knows  how  good  she  was  to  him.  If 
only  one  of  their  people  here  would  insult  me,  I 
should  be  thankful.  But  the  place  seems  to 
accept  me,  and  they  tolerate  a  new  face ;  I  did 
think  some  one  would  show  vexation  or  sorrow 
— do  or  say  something  by  way  of  showing  they 
remembered.  I  was  Quixotic,  I  suppose,  for 
all  the  old  things  made  way  for  me.  Except 
156 


A  Year's    Letters 

the  one  day  when  Redgie  Harewood  came  over 
with  his  father;  he  did  seem  to  think  I  had  no 
business  here,  and  I  never  liked  him  so  well. 
You  recollect  how  angry  it  made  you.  People 
ought  to  remember.  I  was  glad  he  would  not 
stay  in  the  house.  That  was  the  only  time  any 
one  has  treated  me  as  I  want  to  be  treated. 
I  shall  come  and  stay  with  you  if  you  will  have 
me.  I  cannot  go  about  yet,  and  I  hate  every 
corner  of  this  house.  When  I  ride  I  do  literally 
feel  now  and  then  tempted  to  try  and  get 
thrown.  Last  winter  we  were  all  here  together, 
and  she  used  to  sing  at  this  time  in  this  room. 
The  voice  and  the  sound  of  her  dress  come  and 
go  in  my  hearing.  I  see  her  face  and  all  her 
hair  glitter  and  vibrate  as  she  keeps  singing. 
Her  hands  and  her  throat  go  up  and  down,  and 
her  eyes  turn  and  shine.  Then  she  leaves  off 
playing  and  comes  to  me,  and  I  cannot  see  her 
near  enough;  but  I  feel  her  hands  touch  me, 
and  hear  her  crying.  I  can  do  nothing  but 
dream  in  this  way.  I  want  my  life  and  my  love 
back.  I  am  wretched  enough  now,  and  she 
must  be  unhappier  than  I  am;  she  is  so  much 
better.  Her  beautiful  tender  nature  must  be  a 
pain  to  her  every  day.  I  suppose  she  is  sorry 
for  me.  I  would  die  to-day  if  I  could  make  her 
forget.  My  dear  sister,  you  must  let  me  write 
to  you  as  I  can,  and  not  mind  what  I  say.  I 


Love's   Cross-currents 

could  not  well  write  to  a  man  now ;  and  I  never 
was  friends  enough  with  any  one  to  open  out  as 
I  can  to  you.  I  must  get  strength  and  sense  in 
time,  or  make  an  end  somehow.  I  wish  to  God 
I  could  give  all  this  away  and  be  rid  of  things  at 
once. 


Plessey,  Aug.  24th. 

I  WAS  over  at  Lidcombe  again  last  week. 
Frank  was  to  leave  to-day  for  his  sister's:  the 
Radworths  have  asked  him  for  some  time.  I 
am  also  pressed  to  go,  but  I  hardly  like  being 
with  him.  Unfair,  I  suppose,  but  reasonable 
when  one  thinks  of  it.  He  is  a  good  deal  pulled 
down,  and  makes  very  little  of  his  succession: 
asks  after  you  always,  and  seems  rather  to  cling 
to  company.  All  the  legal  work  is  over;  and 
I  hope  you  will  not  be  bothered  with  any  more 
letters.  If  you  care  to  hear,  I  may  tell  you 
there  is  some  chance  of  my  getting  to  work 
after  all.  They  want  to  diplomatize  me:  I  am 
to  have  some  secretaryship  or  other  under 
Lord  Fotherington.  If  anything  comes  of  it 
I  shall  leave  England  next  month.  I  shall  have 
Arthur  Lunsford  for  a  colleague,  and  one  or 
two  other  fellows  I  know  about  me.  A.  L. 
was  a  great  swell  in  our  school-days,  and  used 
to  ride  over  the  heads  of  us  lower  boys  with 


Love's   Cross-currents 

spurs  on.  I  wonder  if  Frank  remembers  what  a 
tremendous  licking  he  got  once  for  doing  Luns- 
ford's  verses  for  him  without  a  false  quantity,  so 
that  when  they  were  shown  up  he  was  caught 
out  and  came  to  awful  grief.  I  don't  know  if  I 
ever  believed  in  anything  as  I  did  once  in  the 
get-up  of  that  fellow.  To  have  him  over  one 
again  will  be  very  comic ;  he  never  could  get  on 
without  fags.  Do  you  think  the  service  admits 
of  his  licking  them  ?  I  suspect  he  might  thrash 
me  still  if  he  tried:  you  know  what  a  splendid 
big  fellow  he  is.  Audley  says  he  is  attache"  to 
Lady  F.,  not  to  the  embassy ;  and  makes  his  way 
by  dint  of  his  songs  and  his  shoulders.  People 
adore  a  huge  musical  man.  Muscles  and  music 
matched  will  help  one  to  bestride  the  world. 
Aime !  I  wish  I  could  buy  either  of  them,  cheap. 
Do  you  remember  an  old  Madame  de  Roche- 
laurier,  who  used  to  claim  alliance  with  you 
through  some  last-century  Cheyne,  and  was 
great  on  old  histories  ? — a  lank  old  lady,  with  a 
half -shaved  chin  and  eyes  that  our  grandmother 
called  vulturine — old  hard  eyes,  that  turned  on 
springs  in  her  head  without  appearing  to  look  ? 
She  has  turned  up  again  this  year  in  England, 
and  means  to  marry  her  daughter  to  Frank,  the 
Radworths  say.  I  have  seen  the  daughter,  and 
she  is  admirable;  the  most  perfect  figure,  and 
hair  like  the  purple  of  a  heartsease ;  her  features 
160 


A  Year's    Letters 

are  rather  too  like  a  little  cat's  for  me;  she  is 
white  and  supple  and  soft,  and  I  suppose  could 
sparkle  and  scratch  if  one  rubbed  up  her  fur 
when  the  weather  was  getting  electric.  Clara 
thinks  her  figure  must  be  an  English  inheri- 
tance: she  is  hardly  over  seventeen.  They  do 
not  think  Frank  will  take  up  with  her,  though 
C.  would  push  the  match  if  she  could  on  his  ac- 
count. You  would  have  heard  of  this  from  her 
if  I  had  not  written.  Madame  de  Rochelaurier 
is  one-third  English,  you  know,  and  avows  her 
wishes  in  the  plainest  way.  She  is  immense 
fun,  and  very  bland  towards  me.  She  gave  me 
one  bit  of  family  history  which  I  must  send  you : 
it  seems  she  had  it  from  the  great-uncle — 
"homme  impayable,  et  dont  mon  cceur  porte 
toujours  le  deuil — rapiece"."  (She  really  said 
it  unprovoked;  Frank  is  a  faded  replica  of  his 
father,  in  her  eyes;  "mais  Claire!  c'est  son  por- 
trait vivant — fait  d'apres  Courbet."  Which  I 
could  not  make  out;  why  Courbet?  and  she 
would  not  expound.)  Here  is  the  story: — 
The  Lady  Cheyne  of  James  I.'s  time  was  a  great 
beauty,  as  we  know  by  that  portrait — the  one 
with  heaps  of  full  deep-yellow  hair,  you  re- 
member, and  opals  under  the  throat.  It  seems 
also  she  was  a  proverb  for  goodness,  in  spite  of 
having  to  husband  that  unbeautiful  "  William, 
tenth  Baron,"  with  the  gaunt  beard  and  grisly 
161 


Love's    Cross-currents 

collar  —  that  bony -cheeked  head  we  always 
thought  the  ugly  one  of  the  lot.  That  was  why 
they  gave  her  the  motto  "sans  reproche"  on 
the  frame.  She  had  two  fellows  in  love  with 
her — the  one  a  Sir  Edmund  Brackley,  and  the 
other,  one  regrets  to  say,  the  old  Reginald  Hare- 
wood  I  was  christened  after,  who  wrote  those 
poems  my  father  keeps  under  key,  and  will  not 
let  the  Herbert  Society  have  to  print.  I  knew 
he  had  a  story,  and  that  the  old  miniature  of 
him,  with  long  curls,  once  had  some  inscription, 
which  my  grandfather  got  rubbed  out.  He  was 
a  fastish  sort  of  fellow  evidently,  and  rather  a 
trump;  he  had  some  tremendous  duel  at  nine- 
teen with  a  Scot  of  the  King's  household,  and 
killed  his  man;  never  could  show  his  face  at 
Court  afterwards.  The  old  account  was  that 
he  lost  heart  after  six  months'  suit,  and  killed 
himself  for  love  of  her :  but  the  truth  seems  to  be 
this;  that  our  perfect  Lady  Margaret  lost  her 
own  head,  and  fell  seriously  in  love  with  his 
rhymes  and  his  sword-hand;  and  one  time 
(this  is  the  Rochelaurier  version)  let  him  in  at 
a  wrong  hour.  Then,  in  the  late  night,  she 
went  to  Lord  Cheyne  and  roused  him  out  of 
sleep,  bidding  him  come  now  and  be  judge  be- 
tween her  and  all  the  world.  So  he  got  up  and 
followed  (in  no  end  of  a  maze  one  would  think), 
and  she  brought  him  to  a  room  where  her  lover 
162 


A   Year's    Letters 

was  lying  asleep  with  his  sword  unfastened. 
Then  she  said, — if  he  believed  her  good  and 
honest,  let  him  strike  a  stroke  for  her  and  kill 
this  fellow.  And  the  man  held  off  (you  should 
have  heard  your  uncle  tell  it,  Madame  de 
Rochelaurier  said ;  her  own  old  eyes  caught  fire, 
and  her  hand  beat  up  and  down) ;  he  stood  back 
and  had  pity  on  him,  for  he  was  so  noble  to 
look  at,  and  had  such  a  boy's  face  as  he  lay 
sleeping  along.  But  she  bade  him  do  her  right, 
and  that  did  he,  though  it  were  with  tears.  For 
the  lover  had  hired  that  night  a  gentlewoman 
of  hers  to  betray  her  into  his  hands  before  it  was 
yet  day;  and  she  had  just  got  wind  of  the 
device.  (But  really  she  had  let  him  in  herself 
in  the  maid's  dress,  and  just  then  left  him. 
"Quelle  te"te!"  Madame  de  Rochelaurier  ob- 
served.) Then  her  husband  struck  him  and 
roused  him,  and  made  him  stand  up  there  and 
fight,  and  before  the  poor  boy  had  got  his 
tackling  ready,  ran  him  through  at  the  first 
pass  under  the  heart.  Then  he  took  his  wife's 
hand  and  made  her  dip  it  into  the  wound  and 
sprinkle  the  blood  over  his  face.  And  the  fellow 
just  threw  up  his  eyes  and  winced  as  she  wetted 
her  hand,  and  said  "Farewell,  the  most  sweet 
and  bitter  thing  upon  earth,"  and  so  died.  After 
that  she  was  held  in  great  honour,  and  most  of 
all  by  her  old  suitor,  Sir  Edmund,  who  became 
163 


Love's    Cross-currents 

friends  with  her  husband  till  the  civil  war, 
when  they  took  up  separate  sides,  and  people 
believed  that  Brackley  (who  was  of  the  Parlia- 
ment party)  killed  Lord  Cheyne  at  Naseby 
with  his  own  hand.  His  troopers,  at  all  events, 
did,  if  he  missed.  The  story  goes,  too,  that 
Cheyne  lived  to  get  at  the  truth  about  his  wife 
by  means  of  her  servant,  and  "never  had  any 
great  joy  of  his  life  afterwards."  Madame  de 
Rochelaurier  gave  me  a  little  copy  of  verses 
sent  from  my  namesake  "  To  his  most  excellent 
and  perfect  lady,  the  Lady  Margaret  Cheyne"; 
she  got  them  from  our  uncle,  who  had  looked  up 
the  story  in  some  old  papers  once,  on  a  rainy 
visit  at  Lidcombe.  I  copied  them  for  you,  think- 
ing it  might  amuse  you  when  you  have  time  on 
hand  to  look  them  over. 

I 
Fair  face,  fair  head,  and  goodly  gentle  brows, 

Sweet  beyond  speech  and  bitter  beyond  measure; 
A  thing  to  make  all  vile  things  virtuous, 

Fill  fear  with  force  and  pain's  heart's  blood  with 

pleasure ; 

Unto  thy  love  my  love  takes  flight,  and  flying 
Between  thy  lips  alights  and  falls  to  sighing. 

II 
Breathe,  and  my  soul  spreads  wing  upon  thy  breath; 

Withhold  it,  in  thy  breath's  restraint  I  perish; 
Sith  life  indeed  is  life,  and  death  is  death, 

As  thou  shalt  choose  to  chasten  them  or  cherish; 
164 


A    Year's    Letters 

As  thou  shalt  please;  for  what  is  good  in  these 
Except  they  fall  and  flower  as  thoti  shalt  please? 

Ill 
Day's  eye,  spring's  forehead,  pearl  above  pearls'  price, 

Hide  me  in  thee  where  sweeter  things  are  hidden, 
Between  the  rose-roots  and  the  roots  of  spice, 

Where  no  man  walks  but  holds  his  foot  forbidden ; 
Where  summer  snow,  in  August  apple-closes, 
Nor  frays  the  fruit  nor  ravishes  the  roses. 

IV 
Yea,  life  is  life,  for  thou  hast  life  in  sight; 

And  death  is  death,  for  thou  and  death  are  parted. 
I  love  thee  not  for  love  of  my  delight, 

But  for  thy  praise,  to  make  thee  holy-hearted; 
Praise  is  love's  raiment,  love  the  body  of  praise, 
The  topmost  leaf  and  chaplet  of  his  days. 

V 
I  love  thee  not  for  love's  sake,  nor  for  mine, 

Nor  for  thy  soul's  sake  merely,  nor  thy  beauty's; 
But  for  that  honour  in  me  which  is  thine, 

To  make  men  praise  me  for  my  loving  duties; 
Seeing  neither  death  nor  earth  nor  time  shall  cover 
The  soul  that  lived  on  love  of  such  a  lover. 

VI 

So  shall  thy  praise  be  more  than  all  it  is, 
As  thou  art  tender  and  of  piteous  fashion. 

Not  that  I  bid  thee  stoop  to  pluck  my  kiss, 

Too  pale  a  fruit  for  thy  red  mouth's  compassion; 

But  till  love  turn  my  soul's  pale  cheeks  to  red, 

Let  it  not  go  down  to  the  dusty  dead. 

R.  H. 

FINIS 


Love's   Cross-currents 

The  thing  is  dated  1625,  and  he  was  killed  next 
year,  being  just  my  age  at  the  time.  I  do  call  it 
a  shame;  but  Madame  de  Rochelaurier  says  it 
was  worth  her  while,  and  would  make  a  good 
story,  which  one  might  call  "The  Cost  of  a 
Reputation."  "C'etait  decide'ment  une  femme 
forte,"  she  said  placidly.  That  is  true,  I  should 
say,  but  the  presence  of  mind  was  rather 
horribly  admirable;  she  must  have  had  great 
pluck  of  a  certain  sort  to  go  straight  off  to  her 
husband  and  put  the  thing  into  his  head; 
no  wonder  they  called  her  "sans  reproche."  I 
should  put  "  sans  merci"  on  the  frame  if  it  were 
mine.  Those  verses  of  his  read  oddly  by  the 
light  of  the  story ;  I  have  rather  a  weakness  for 
that  pink  and  perfumed  sort  of  poem  that  smells 
of  dead  spice  and  preserved  leaves ;  it  reads  like 
opening  an  old  jar  of  pot-pourri,  with  its  stiff 
scented  turns  of  verse  and  tags  of  gold  em- 
broidery gone  tawny  in  the  dust  and  rust.  And 
in  spite  of  all  the  old  court-stuff  about  apples 
and  roses  and  the  rest,  there  is  a  kind  of  serious 
twang  in  it  here  and  there,  as  if  the  man  did  care 
to  mean  something.  I  suppose  he  didn't  mind, 
and  liked  his  life  the  better  on  account  of  her; 
would  have  gone  on  all  the  same  if  he  had  known ; 
fellows  do  get  to  be  such  fools.  I  don't  think  I 
should  have  cared  much  either.  Conceive 
Ernest  not  liking  his  wife  to  talk  about  it.  He 

1 66 


A   Year's    Letters 

found  the  verses  in  a  book  of  hers,  and  wanted 
to  burn  them :  then  sat  down  and  read  Prodgers 
on  Pantology,  or  something  in  that  way,  for  two 
hours  instead,  till  Madame  de  Rochelaurier  call- 
ed, Clara  told  me  that  evening.  A  treatise  on 
the  use  of  fish-bones  as  manure  I  think  it  was. 
She  will  not  take  the  Rochelaurier  view  at  all, 
and  says  Lady  Margaret  ought  to  have  been 
hanged  or  burnt.  As  for  my  forefather,  she 
calls  him  the  perfectest  knight  and  fool  on 
record:  the  sort  of  man  one  could  have  risked 
being  burnt  for  with  pleasure.  She  would  have 
been  a  noble  chatelaine  in  the  castle  days.  One 
would  have  taken  the  chance  for  her  sake; 
rather.  And  if  ever  anything  were  said  about 
her — all  such  natures  do  get  ill-used — I  think 
and  trust  you  for  one  would  stand  by  her  and 
speak  up  for  her.  She  is  too  good  to  let  the 
world  be  very  good  to  her.  Tears  and  brilliant 
light  mixed  in  her  eyes  when  she  talked  of  that 
bit  of  story:  the  beautifullest  pity  and  anger 
and  passionate  compassion.  She  might  have 
kept  sans  reproche  on  her  shield,  and  never 
written  sans  merci  on  her  heart.  I  believe  she 
could  do  anything  great.  She  wanted  to  be  at 
Naples  last  year;  would  have  outdone  Madame 
Mario  in  that  splendid  labour  of  hers.  She 
says  if  she  were  not  in  mourning  already  she 
would  put  on  deeper  black  for  Cavour  now;  I 
167 


Love's   Cross-currents 

told  her  not.  If  she  had  been  born  an  Italian, 
and  had  the  chance  given  her,  she  would  have 
gone  into  battle  as  gladly  as  the  best  men.  That 
Venice  visit  last  year  set  the  stamp  on  it.  I 
never  saw  her  so  nearly  letting  tears  really  fall 
as  when  she  quoted  that  about  the  "piteous 
ruinous  beauty  of  all  sights  in  the  fair-faced  city 
that  death  and  love  fought  for  when  it  was  alive, 
and  love  was  beaten,  but  comes  back  always  to 
look  at  the  sweet  killed  body  left  there  adrift 
between  sea  and  sunset."  I  am  certain  Ernest 
wears  her  out;  the  miserable  day's  work  does 
tell  upon  her,  and  the  nerves  and  head  will  fail 
bit  by  bit  if  it  goes  on.  Men  would  trust  in  her 
and  honour  her  if  she  were  a  man ;  why  cannot 
women  as  it  is  ?  Whatever  comes,  she  ought  to 
look  to  us  at  least ;  to  you  and  me. 


XXI 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

Ashton  Hildred,  Sept.  loth. 

I  WISH  my  news  were  of  a  better  sort ;  but  I 
can  only  say,  in  answer  to  your  nice  kind  letter, 
that  Amicia  is  in  a  very  bad  way  indeed.  At 
least,  I  think  so ;  she  has  not  held  up  her  head 
for  weeks,  and  her  face  seems  to  me  changing,  as 
some  unusually  absurd  poet  of  your  generation 
has  observed,  "from  the  lily-leaf  to  the  lily- 
stem."  Stalk  he  might  at  least  have  said,  but 
he  wanted  a  sort  of  villainous  rhyme  to  "  flame." 
A  letter  from  Reginald  the  other  day  put  some 
light  and  colour  into  her  for  a  minute,  but  seemed 
to  leave  her  worse  than  ever  when  the  warmth 
was  taken  off.  Next  day  she  could  not  come 
down:  I,  with  some  conventional  brutality, 
forced  a  way  into  her  room  and  found  her  just 
asleep,  her  face  crushed  into  the  wet  pillow,  with 
the  fever  of  tears  on  the  one  cheek  uppermost — 
leaden  and  bluish  with  crying  and  watching. 
I  tell  her  that  to  weep  herself  green  is  no  widow's 
duty,  and  no  sign  of  ripeness;  but  she  keeps 
169 


Love's   Cross-currents 

wearing  down;  is  not  visibly  thinner  yet,  but 
must  be  soon.  Her  eyelids  will  get  limp  and 
her  eyelashes  ragged  at  this  rate;  she  speaks 
with  a  sort  of  hard  low  choke  in  the  notes  of  her 
voice  which  is  perfectly  ruinous.  Very  few 
things  seem  to  excite  her  for  a  second ;  she  can 
hardly  read  at  all:  sits  with  her  chin  down  and 
eyes  half  drawn  over  like  a  sleepy  sick  child.  I 
should  not  wonder  to  see  her  hair  beginning  to 
go:  she  actually  looks  sharp:  one  might  expect 
her  brows  and  chin  to  become  obtrusive  in  six 
months'  time.  Even  the  rumour  we  hear  (not 
at  first  hand  you  know)  about  a  Rochelaurier 
revival  did  not  seem  to  rouse  or  amuse  her.  If 
there  is  anything  in  the  chatter,  one  can  only 
be  glad  of  such  an  improvement  in  the  second 
generation;  for  I  cannot  well  conceive  Frank's 
marrying,  or  your  approving,  a  new  edition  of 
Mademoiselle  Armande  de  Castigny.  Fabien 
de  Rochelaurier  was  the  most  victimized,  un- 
happiest  specimen  of  a  husband  I  ever  saw: 
a  Prudhomme-Coquardeau  of  good  company,  if 
you  can  take — and  will  tolerate — the  Gavarni 
metaphor.  The  life  she  led  him  is  unknown; 
half  her  exploits,  I  believe  devoutly,  never 
reached  the  light — many  I  suspect  never  would 
bear  the  air.  You  must  know  what  people  say 
of  that  young  M.  de  Saverny,  who  goes  about 
with  them — the  man  you  used  to  get  on  so  well 
170 


A   Year's    Letters 

with  two  years  ago  ?  He  never  turned  up  dur- 
ing Madame  de  Saverny's  life  anywhere — and 
months  after  the  poor  wretched  lady's  death 
his  father  produces  this  child  of  four,  and  takes 
him  about  as  his  orphaned  heir,  and  presents 
him  —  notamment  to  the  Rochelauriers,  who 
make  an  infinite  ado  about  the  child  ever 
after.  Why,  at  one  time  he  wanted  to  marry 
the  girl  himself — had  played  with  her  in  child- 
hood— plighted  troth  among  budding  roses — 
chased  butterflies  together — Paul  et  Virginie, 
nothing  less.  This  was  a  year  ago,  just  after 
he  went  back  to  France,  she  being  barely  out  of 
her  convent.  Do  you  want  to  know  why,  and 
how,  it  was  broken  off?  Look  in  the  table  of 
affinities. 

Of  course,  if  the  girl  is  nice,  tant  mieux.  Re- 
membering my  dear  mother,  it  is  not  for  me 
to  object  to  a  French  Lady  Cheyne.  But  a 
Rochelaurier — if  Rochelaurier  it  is  to  be — you 
will  allow  is  rather  startling.  Old  M.  de  Saverny 
is  dead,  certainly,  which  is  one  safeguard,  and 
really  a  thing  to  be  thankful  for.  He  was  awful. 
Valfons,  Lauzun,  Richelieu's  own  self,  hardly 
more  compromising.  And  here  the  mother  tells. 
Unluckily,  but  so  it  is.  Taking  one  thing  with 
another  into  account,  though,  Philomene  might 
get  over  this  well  enough.  Ce  nom  tramontain 
et  deVot  m'a  toujours  crispe"  les  nerfs.  But  if 
171 


Love's   Cross-currents 

Frank  likes  her,  well  and  good.  People  do  not 
always  inherit  things.  Your  friend,  for  instance, 
the  amiable  Octave,  is  not  very  like  that  ex- 
quisite and  infamous  old  father.  Only  I  should 
be  inclined  to  take  time,  and  look  well  about  me. 
Here,  again,  you  may  be  invaluable  to  the  boy. 
By  what  I  remember,  I  should  hardly  have 
thought  Philomene  de  Rochelaurier  would  turn 
out  the  sort  of  girl  to  attract  him.  Pretty  I 
have  no  doubt  she  is.  Octave  I  always  thought 
unbearable;  that  complexion  of  singed  white 
always  gives  me  the  notion  of  a  sheet  of  note- 
paper  flung  on  the  fire  by  mistake,  and  snatched 
off  with  the  edges  charred.  Et  puis  ces  yeux  de 
lapin.  Et  cette  voix  de  serin.  The  blood  is 
running  out,  evidently.  M.  de  Saverny  pere 
was  great  in  his  best  days.  They  used  to  say 
last  year  that  Count  Sindrakoff  had  supplanted 
his  ghost  aupres  de  la  Rochelaurier.  She  is 
nearly  my  age.  But  I  believe  the  Russian  was 
a  young  man  of  the  Directory  or  thereabouts.  I 
am  getting  horridly  scandalous,  but  Armande 
was  always  too  much  for  my  poor  patience.  She 
thinks  herself  one  of  Balzac's  women,  and  gets 
up  affairs  to  order.  Besides,  she  always  fell 
short  of  diplomacy  through  pure  natural  lack 
of  brain;  and  yet  was  always  drawing  blunt 
arrows  to  the  head,  and  taking  shaky  aim  at 
some  shifting  public  bull's-eye.  I  wrote  a 
172 


A   Year's    Letters 

little  thing  about  her  some  years  since,  and 
labelled  it,  "La  Femme  de  Cinquante  Ans, 
Etude";  it  got  sent  to  Jules  de  Versac,  who 
touched  it  up,  and  put  it  in  the  Timon — it  was 
the  best  sketch  I  ever  made.  I  dare  say  she 
knows  I  wrote  it.  It  amuses  me  ineffably  to 
find  her  taking  up  with  Redgie  Harewood;  I 
suppose  by  way  of  paying  indirect  court  to  us. 
I  know  he  has  more  than  the  usual  boy's  weak- 
ness for  women  twice  his  age,  but  surely  there 
can  be  nothing  of  the  sort  here?  They  seem 
exquisitely  confidential  by  his  own  innocent 
account.  She  always  did  like  lamb  and  veal. 
The  daughter  must  be  too  young  for  him.  A 
woman  with  natural  red  and  without  natural 
grey  is  no  doubt  not  yet  worth  his  looking  at — 
that  is,  unless  there  were  circumstances  which 
made  it  wrong  and  unsafe  —  but  I  speak  of 
serious  things.  I  thought  at  one  time  he  was 
sure  to  upset  all  kinds  of  women  with  that  cu- 
rious personal  beauty  of  his,  as  his  poor  sister 
used  to  upset  men ;  he  is  such  a  splendid  boy  to 
look  at,  as  to  face ;  but  now  I  see  his  lot  in  life 
lies  the  other  way,  and  he  will  always  be  the 
footstool  and  spindle  of  any  woman  who  may 
choose  to  have  him.  Less  mischief  will  come  of 
him  that  way,  which  is  consoling  to  remember. 
Indeed,  I  doubt  now  if  he  ever  will  do  any ;  but 
if  he  gets  over  thirty  without  some  damage  to 


Love's   Cross-currents 

himself  I  shall  be  only  too  thankful.  Really, 
I  think,  in  default  of  better,  I  would  rather  see 
him  than  Frank  married  to  Mademoiselle  de 
Rochelaurier.  Lord  Cheyne  has  time  and  room 
to  beat  about  in,  and  choose  from  right  or  left. 
Now  Redgie,  I  begin  to  believe,  will  have  to 
marry  before  long.  It  would  be  something  to 
keep  him  out  of  absurdities.  We  know  too 
well  what  a  head  it  is  when  any  windmill  is 
£et  spinning  inside  it.  And,  without  irony, 
I  am  convinced  Madame  de  Rochelaurier  must 
have  a  real  kindly  feeling  about  him.  She  was 
out  of  her  depth  in  love  with  your  father  in 
1825,  and  Redgie  now  and  then  reminds  me  a 
little  of  him;  Frank  is  placider,  and  not  quite 
such  a  handsome  fellow  as  my  brother  used  to 
be.  It  is  so  like  her  to  come  out  with  old  family 
histories  and  relics  as  the  best  means  of  as- 
tonishing the  boy's  weak  mind;  but  I  did  not 
know  she  had  still  any  actual  and  tangible 
memorials  of  the  time  by  her.  I  have  been 
trying  to  recollect  the  date  of  her  daughter's 
birth;  she  was  extant  in  '46,  for  I  saw  her  in 
Paris,  a  lean  child  in  the  rose  blonde  line.  Three, 
I  should  think,  at  the  time,  or  perhaps  five — a 
good  ten  years  younger  than  Octave  de  Saverny. 
Redgie's  three  or  four  years  over  would  just  tell 
in  the  right  way — Frank  I  should  call  too  young. 
I  want  you  to  tell  me  honestly  how  you  look  at 


A    Year's    Letters 

it.  To  me  it  seems  he  might  brush  about  the 
world  a  little  more  before  he  begins  marrying. 
Only  this  instant  come  of  age,  you  know.  The 
attachment  might  be  a  good  thing  enough  for 
him.  Mademoiselle  Philomene  I  suppose  must 
be  clever ;  there  is  no  reason  to  presume  she  can 
have  inherited  the  poor  old  vicomte's  flaccidity 
of  head  and  tongue.  Very  spiritually  Catholic, 
and  excitable  on  general  matters,  the  girl  ought 
to  be  by  this  time ;  Armande,  I  remember,  was  a. 
tremendous  legitimist  (curious  for  her)  of  late 
years,  and  has  doubtless  undertaken  to  con- 
vert Reginald  to  sane  views,  and  weed  out  his 
heresies  and  democracies.  I  should  like  to  see 
and  hear  the  process.  Since  the  empire  came  in 
I  believe  she  has  put  lilies  on  her  carpets,  and 
rallied  her  crew  round  the  old  standard  with  a 
will.  Henri  V.  must  be  truly  thankful  for  her. 
Desloches,  the  religious  journalist,  was  one  of 
her  converts — the  man  whom  Sindrakoff,  with 
hyperborean  breadth  of  speech,  once  indicated 
to  me  as  a  cochon  manqu6.  Ever  since  the 
Ltgende  des  Sibcles  came  out  /  have  called  him 
Sultan  Mourad's  pig.  One  might  suggest  as  a 
motto  for  his  paper  that  line, 

Le  pourceau  miserable  et  Dieu  se  regard&rent. 

Edmond  Ramel  made  me  a  delicious  sketch  of 
the  subject,  with  Armande  de  Rochelaurier,  in 


Love's   Cross-currents 

sultanic  apparel  and  with  a  beard  beyond  all 
price  or  praise,  flapping  the  flies  off,  her  victims 
(social  and  otherwise)  strewing  the  background. 
On  apercevait  en  haut,  parmi  des  e"toiles,  le  bon 
Dieu  qui  larmoyait,  tout  en  s'essuyant  1'ceil 
gauche  d'un  mouchoir  azure",  au  coin  duquel  on 
voyait  brod6  le  chiffre  du  journal  de  Desloches, 
nume'ro  cent.  Cette  figure  be"ate  avait  les  traits 
— devinez — du  pauvre  vieux  vicomte  Fabien. 
Je  n'ai  jamais  ri  de  si  bon  cceur.  Que  Victor 
Hugo  me  pardonne! 

As  I  suppose  nobody  thinks  just  yet  of  be- 
trothals or  such  like,  I  want  to  hear  what  you 
think  of  doing  for  the  next  month  or  so.  It  is 
a  pity  to  leave  Lidcombe  bare  and  void  all  the 
autumn  weeks.  The  place  is  splendid  then, 
with  a  sad  and  noble  sort  of  beauty  in  all  the 
corners  of  it.  Such  hills  and  fields,  as  Redgie 
neatly  expressed  himself  in  that  last  remarkable 
lyric  of  his,  "  shaken  and  sounded  through  by 
the  trumpets  of  the  sea."  The  Hadleigh  sands 
are  worth  seeing  about  the  equinox;  only, 
Heaven  knows,  we  have  all  had  sight  enough  of 
the  sea  for  one  year.  Still,  Frank  ought  to  be 
about  the  place  now  and  then,  or  they  will  never 
grow  together  properly.  Why  can  you  not  go 
down  together,  and  set  up  house  in  a  quiet  sis- 
terly fashion  for  a  little  ? — he  has  hardly  stayed 
there  ten  days  in  all  since  the  spring.  After  liv- 
176 


A    Year's    Letters 

ing  more  than  six  weeks  with  you,  except  that 
little  Lidcombe  interlude  at  the  end  of  July  and 
those  few  days  in  London,  it  is  his  turn  to  play 
host.  Or,  if  any  sort  of  feeling  stands  in  the  way 
of  it,  why  not  go  to  Lord  Charnworth's,  as  you 
did  last  year  ?  If  there  is  anything  sound  in  the 
Rochelaurier  business,  it  will  grow  all  the  bet- 
ter for  a  little  separation — I  am  sure  I  for  one 
would  not  for  worlds  mettre  des  batons  dans  les 
roues.  But  if  it  is  a  mere  bit  of  intrigue  on  the 
mother's  part  (and  I  can  hardly  believe  Ar- 
mande  a  trustworthy  person),  surely  it  is  better 
cut  loose  at  once,  and  let  drift.  I  shall  try  and 
see  Philomene  this  winter,  whether  they  return 
or  stay.  The  Charnworths  are  perfect  people, 
and  will  be  only  too  glad  of  you  all.  A  cousin's 
death  is  no  absolute  reason  for  going  into  a 
modern  Thebaid,  nice  as  he  was.  And  I  hardly 
suppose  you  still  retain  your  old  preference  of 
Octave  de  Saverny  to  Lord  Charnworth  in  the 
days  before  the  latter  poor  man  married — en- 
tirely, I  have  always  believed,  a  result  of  your 
early  cruelty.  Now,  if  you  stay  at  home  and 
keep  up,  in  or  out  of  London,  the  intimacy  that 
seems  to  be  getting  renewed,  I  predict  you  will 
have  the  whole  maison  Rochelaurier  et  Cie  upon 
your  hands  at  Blocksham  before  you  know 
where  to  turn.  Science  will  be  blown  up  heav- 
en-high, and  Mr.  Radworth  will  commit  suicide. 

177' 


Love's    Cross-currents 

I  am  getting  too  terrible  in  my  anticipations, 
and  must  come  to  a  halt  before  all  my  colours 
have  run  to  black.     Besides,  our  doctor  has  just 
left,  and  the  post  begins  to  clamour  for  its  prey. 
He  gives  us  very  singular  auguries  about  his 
patient.     For  my  own  part,  I  must  say  I  had 
begun  to  have  a  certain  dim  prevision  in  the 
quarter  to  which  he  seems  to  point.     At  all 
events,  it  appears  she  is  in  no  present  danger, 
and  we  must  not  press  the  doubt.     I  trust  you 
not  to  intimate  the  least  hope  or  fear  of  such  a 
thing  happening,  and  only  refer  to  it  here  to 
relieve  the  anxious  feeling  I  might  have  given 
you  by  the  tone  of  my  first  sentences.    It  would 
be  unpardonable  to  excite  uneasiness  or  pity  to 
no  purpose.     False  alarms,   especially  in  the 
posthumous  way,  are  never  things  to  be  excused 
on  any  hand.    You  can  just  let  Frank  know  that 
we  none  of  us  apprehend  any  actual  risk :  which 
is  more  than  I,  at  least,  would  have  said  a 
month  since.     She  is  miserably  reticent  and 
depressed.     I  must  end  now,  with  all  loves,  as 
people  used  to  say  ages  ago.     Take  good  care  of 
them  all,  and  still  better  care  of  yourself — on 
many  accounts — and  think  in  the  kindest  way 
you  can  of 

Yours  most  affectionately, 

H.  MIDHURST. 


XXII 

CAPTAIN  HAREWOOD  TO  REGINALD 

Plessey,  Oct    zzd. 

MY  DEAR  REGINALD: 

You  will  at  once  begin  preparing  for  your 
work,  unless  you  wish  to  throw  this  chance  too 
over,  and  incur  my  still  more  serious  displeasure. 
That  is  all  the  answer  I  shall  make  you.  You 
must  be  very  well  aware  that  for  years  back  you 
have  disgracefully  disappointed  me  in  every 
hope  and  every  plan  I  have  formed  with  regard 
to  you.  Of  your  school  and  college  career  I 
shall  have  a  few  words  to  say  presently.  It  is 
against  my  expressed  wish  and  expectation  that 
you  are  now  in  London  instead  of  being  here 
under  my  eye :  and  even  after  all  past  experience 
of  your  utter  disregard  of  discipline  and  duty,  I 
cannot  but  feel  surprise  at  your  present  proposal. 
If  you  do  visit  the  Radworths  before  returning 
home,  you  will  do  so  in  direct  defiance  of  my 
desire.  That  course,  understand,  is  distinctly 
forbidden  you.  After  our  last  interview  on  the 
subject  I  can  only  consider  the  very  suggestion 
179 


Love's    Cross-currents 

as  an  act  of  an  insolent  and  rebellious  nature. 
I  know  the  construction  to  which  your  conduct 
towards  your  cousin  has  not  unnaturally  ex- 
posed you ;  and  you  know  that  I  know  it.  Upon 
her  and  upon  yourself  your  inexcusable  and 
puerile  behaviour  has  already  drawn  down  re- 
mark and  reproach.  I  am  resolved,  and  I  in- 
tend that  you  shall  remember  I  am,  to  put  an 
end  to  this.  I  have  come  upon  a  letter  from 
your  grandmother,  dated  some  time  back — I 
think  before  the  miserable  catastrophe  in  which 
you  were  mixed  up  at  Portsmouth — bearing  im- 
mediately in  every  line  upon  this  affair:  and  I 
have  read  it  with  attention.  Secrets  of  that 
kind  you  have  no  right  to  have  or  to  keep ;  and 
I  have  every  right  and  reason  to  investigate 
them.  Another  time,  if  you  intend  to  pursue  a 
furtive  line  of  action,  you  will  do  well  to  make 
it  a  more  cautious  one :  the  letter  I  speak  of  was 
left  actually  under  my  hand,  not  so  much  as 
put  away  among  other  papers.  Upon  the  style 
of  Lady  Midhurst's  address  to  you  I  shall  not 
here  remark;  but  you  must  expect,  I  should 
think,  to  hear  that  my  view  of  such  things  is  far 
enough  from  being  the  same  as  hers.  Rightly 
or  wrongly,  I  consider  the  sort  of  relationship 
she  appears  to  contemplate  in  that  letter  as  at 
once  criminal  and  contemptible:  and  I  cannot 
pretend  to  observe  it  with  indifference  or  toler- 
180 


A    Year's    Letters 

ation.  You  seem  to  me  to  have  written  and 
acted  childishly  indeed,  but  not  the  less  sinfully. 
However,  I  am  not  now  about  to  preach  to  you. 
The  One  safeguard  against  natural  evil  and 
antidote  to  natural  unwisdom  you  have  long 
been  encouraged  to  neglect  and  overlook.  All 
restrictions  placed  around  you  by  the  care  of 
others  and  of  myself  you  have  even  thus  early 
chosen  to  discard.  It  is  poor  comfort  to  re- 
flect that,  as  far  as  I  know,  you  have  not  as 
yet  fallen  into  the  more  open  and  gross  vices 
which  many  miserable  young  fools  think  it 
almost  laudable  to  indulge  in.  This  can  but  be 
at  best  the  working  of  a  providential  accident, 
not  the  outcome  of  any  real  self-denial  or  manly 
self-restraint  on  your  part.  Without  this  I 
count  all  fortuitous  abstinence  from  sin  worth 
very  little.  In  a  wiser  eye  than  man's  many  a 
seemingly  worse  character  may  be  purer  than 
yours.  From  childhood  upwards,  I  must  once 
for  all  remind  you,  you  have  thwarted  my  wishes 
and  betrayed  my  trust.  Prayer,  discipline, 
confidence,  restraint,  hourly  vigilance,  untiring 
attention,  one  after  another,  failed  to  work  upon 
you.  Affectionate  enough  by  nature,  and  with 
no  visibly  vicious  tendencies,  but  unstable, 
luxurious,  passionate,  and  indolent,  you  set  at 
naught  all  guidance,  and  never  in  your  life 
would  let  the  simple  noble  sense  of  duty  take 


Love's   Cross-currents 

hold  of  you.  At  school  you  were  incessantly 
under  punishment ;  at  home  you  were  constant- 
ly in  disgrace.  Pain  and  degradation  could  not 
keep  you  right;  to  disgrace  the  most  frequent, 
to  pain  the  most  severe,  you  opposed  a  deadly 
strength  of  sloth  and  tacit  vigour  of  rebellion. 
So  your  boyhood  passed ;  I  have  yet  in  my  ear 
the  remark  of  one  of  your  tutors — "Severity 
can  do  little  for  the  boy;  indulgence,  nothing." 
What  the  upshot  of  your  college  career  was  you 
must  remember  only  too  well,  and  I  still  hope 
not  without  some  regret  and  shame.  Absolute 
inert  idleness  and  wilful  vanity,  after  a  long 
course  of  violated  discipline  in  small  matters, 
brought  you  in  time  to  the  dishonourable  failure 
you  had  been  at  no  pains  to  avoid. 

And  yet  you  know  well  enough  whether  or 
no  I  have  done  and  purpose,  even  yet,  to  do  all 
for  you  that  I  can ;  whether  I  have  not  always 
been  but  too  ready  to  palliate  and  indulge; 
whether,  from  the  very  first,  the  utmost,  ten- 
derest  allowance  has  not  been  made  for  you, 
and  the  least  possible  share  of  your  own  faults 
laid  to  your  own  charge.  This,  I  say,  you  do, 
in  your  conscience  and  heart,  know,  and  must 
needs  bear  me  witness  to  the  truth  of  it.  I 
must  confess  I  have  not  now  much  hope  left. 
Little  comfort  and  little  pleasure  have  you  ever 
given  me,  and  I  expect  to  get  less  and  less  from 
182 


A    Year's    Letters 

you  as  our  lives  go  on.  One  thing,  though,  I 
can,  at  worst,  be  sure  of:  that  my  own  duty 
shall  be  done.  As  long  as  I  can  hold  them  at  all, 
I  will  not  throw  the  reins  upon  your  neck.  I  will 
not,  while  I  can  help  it,  allow  you  to  speak,  to 
act,  if  possible  to  think,  in  a  way  likely  to  injure 
others.  I  desire  you  not  to  go  to  the  house  of  a 
man  whom  I  know  you  profess,  out  of  your  own 
inordinate  impertinence  and  folly,  to  dislike 
and  contemn ;  I  trust  you,  at  least,  as  a  gentle- 
man, to  respect  my  opinion  and  my  confidence, 
if  I  cannot  count  on  your  obedience  as  my  son ; 
on  these  grounds  I  do  believe  and  expect  you 
will  not  visit  Blocksham.  Mr.  Ernest  Rad- 
worth  is  a  man  infinitely  your  superior  in  every 
way.  For  many  years  he  has  led  a  most  pure, 
laborious,  and  earnest  life.  The  truly  great  and 
genuine  talents  accorded  to  him  at  his  birth  he 
has  submitted  to  the  most  conscientious  cult- 
ure, and  turned  to  the  utmost  possible  advan- 
tage. To  himself  he  has  been  consistently  and 
admirably  true;  to  others  I  believe  he  has 
invariably  been  most  helpful,  beneficent,  exem- 
plary in  all  his  dealings.  By  one  simple  proc- 
ess of  life  he  has  kept  himself  pure  and  made 
all  near  him  happy.  From  first  to  last  he  was 
the  stay  and  pride  of  his  family;  and  since  he 
has  been  left  alone  in  his  father's  place  he  has 
nobly  kept  up  the  distinction  which,  in  earliest 
183 


Love's   Cross-currents 

youth,  and  even  boyhood,  he  very  deservedly 
acquired.  A  fit  colleague  and  a  fit  successor, 
this  one,  (as  you  would  acknowledge  if  you  were 
capable  of  seeing)  for  the  greatest  labourers  in 
the  field  of  English  science.  Excellent  and 
admirable  in  all  things,  he  is  in  none  more 
worthy  of  respect  than  in  his  private  and  domes- 
tic relations.  There  is  not  a  man  living  for 
whom  I  entertain  a  more  heartfelt  regard — I 
had  well  nigh  said  reverence — than  for  Mr. 
Radworth.  I  verily  believe  he  has  not  a  thing, 
humanly  speaking,  to  be  ashamed  of  in  look- 
ing back  upon  his  past  life.  Every  hour,  so 
to  say,  has  had  its  share  of  noble  toil — and, 
therefore,  also  its  share  of  immediate  reward. 
For  these  men  work  for  the  world's  sake,  not  for 
their  own :  and  from  the  world,  not  from  them- 
selves, they  do  in  time  receive  their  full  wages. 
There  is  no  more  unsullied  and  unselfish  glory 
on  earth  than  that  of  the  faithful  and  reverent 
scientific  workman :  and  to  such  one  can  always 
reasonably  hope  that  the  one  thing  which  may 
perhaps  be  wanting  will  in  due  time  be  supplied. 
The  contempt  or  disrelish  of  a  young,  idle,  far 
from  noteworthy  man  for  such  a  character  as 
that  of  Ernest  Radworth  is  simply  a  ludicrous 
and  deplorable  phenomenon.  You  are  incom- 
petent to  appreciate  for  one  moment  even  a 
tenth  part  of  his  excellence.  But  I  am  resolved 
184 


A    Year's    Letters 

you  shall  make  no  unworthy  use  of  a  friendship 
you  are  incapable  of  deserving.  Of  your  cousin 
I  will  here  say  only  that  I  trust  she  may  in  time 
learn  fully  to  apprehend  the  value  of  such  a 
heart  and  such  a  mind.  By  no  other  path  than 
this  of  both  repentant  and  retrospective  humil- 
ity can  she  ever  hope  to  attain  real  happiness  or 
honour.  I  should,  for  Ernest's  sake,  truly  re- 
gret being  compelled  to  adopt  Lady  Midhurst's 
sufficiently  apparent  opinion  that  she  is  not 
worthy  to  perceive  and  decide  on  such  a  path. 

You  now  know  my  desire;  and  I  do  not 
choose  to  add  any  further  appeal.  Expecting, 
for  the  sake  at  least  of  your  own  immediate 
prospects,  that  you  will  follow  it, 

I  remain  your  anxious  and  affectionate  father, 

PHILIP  HAREWOOD. 


XXIII 
FRANCIS  CHEYNE  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

Lidcombe,  Nov.  ijth. 

I  HAVE  just  read  your  letter.  Come  by  all 
means  next  month,  and  stay  as  long  as  you  can. 
Every  day  spent  here  by  myself  is  a  heavier 
and  more  subtle  irritation  to  me  than  the  one 
before.  Reginald  will  come  for  a  few  days,  at 
least;  his  foreign  outlook  seems  to  have  fallen 
back  into  vapour  and  remote  chance.  The 
Captain  was  over  here  lately,  looking  pinched 
and  hard — a  head  to  make  children  recoil  and 
wince  at  the  sight  of  it.  He  is  still  of  great  help 
to  me.  As  to  Madame  de  Rochelaurier,  to  be 
quite  open,  I  had  rather  not  meet  her  just  now ; 
so  you  will  not  look  for  me  before  the  day  they 
leave  you.  Afterwards  I  may  come  over  to 
escort  you  and  Ernest,  if  it  turns  out  worth 
while.  Anything  to  get  about  a  little,  without 
going  out  of  reach.  News,  I  suppose,  must 
come  from  Ashton  Hildred  before  very  long. 
At  such  a  time  I  have  no  heart  to  spare  for 
thinking  over  plans  or  people.  Your  praise  of 

186 


A    Year's    Letters 

Mademoiselle  de  Rochelaurier  is,  of  course, 
all  right  and  just.  She  is  a  very  jolly  sort  of 
girl,  and  sufficiently  handsome;  and  if  Redgie 
does  marry  her  I  shall  just  stop  short  of  envy- 
ing him.  Does  Madame  really  want  me  to  take 
such  a  gift  at  her  hand  ?  Well  and  good ;  it  is 
incomparably  obliging;  but  then,  when  I  am 
looking  at  Mademoiselle  Philomene,  and  letting 
myself  go  to  the  sound  of  her  voice  like  a  song 
to  the  tune,  unhappily  there  gets  up  between  us 
such  an  invincible  exquisite  memory  of  a  face 
ten  times  more  beautiful  and  loveable  to  have  in 
sight  of  one ;  pale  when  I  saw  it  last,  as  if  drawn 
down  by  its  hair,  heavily  weighted  about  the 
eyes  with  a  presage  of  tears,  sealed  with  sorrow, 
and  piteous  with  an  infinite  unaccomplished 
desire.  The  old  deep-gold  hair  and  luminous 
grey-green  eyes  shot  through  with  colours  of  sea- 
water  in  sunlight,  and  threaded  with  faint  keen 
lines  of  fire  and  light  about  the  pupil,  beat  for 
me  the  blue-black  of  Mademoiselle  de  Roche- 
laurier's.  Then  that  mouth  of  hers  and  the 
shadow  made  almost  on  the  chin  by  the  underlip 
— such  sad  perfect  lips,  full  of  tender  power 
and  faith,,  and  her  wonderful  way  of  lifting  and 
dropping  her  face  imperceptibly,  flower-fashion, 
when  she  begins  or  leaves  off  speaking;  I  shall 
never  hear  such  a  voice  in  the  world,  either. 
I  cannot,  and  need  not  now,  pretend  to  dissem- 
187 


Love's   Cross-currents 

ble  or  soften  down  what  I  feel  about  her.  I  do 
love  her  with  all  my  heart  and  might.  And  now 
that,  after  happy  years,  she  is  fallen  miserable 
and  ill,  dangerously  ill,  for  aught  I  know,  and 
incurably  miserable — who  can  say? — it  is  not 
possible  for  me,  sitting  here  in  her  house  that 
I  have  had  to  drive  her  out  of,  to  think  very 
much  of  anything  else,  or  to  think  at  all  of  any 
other  woman  in  the  way  of  liking.  This  is  mere 
bare  truth,  not  sentiment  or  excited  fancy  by 
any  means,  and  you  will  not  take  it  for  such  a 
sort  of  thing.  If  I  can  never  marry  the  one 
woman  perfectly  pleasant  to  me  and  faultlessly 
fit  for  me  in  the  whole  beautiful  nature  of  her, 
I  will  never  insult  her  and  my  own  heart  by 
marrying  at  all.  Aunt  Midhurst's  view  of  the 
Rochelaurier  family  has  no  great  weight  with 
me ;  but  I  have  a  little  hope  now,  after  reading 
what  she  says  to  you,  that,  as  she  is  clearly  set 
against  the  chance  of  any  other  marriage  for  me, 
she  may,  perhaps,  be  some  day  brought  to 
think  of  the  one  desire  of  my  whole  life  as  a 
possible  thing  to  fulfil.  Even  to  you  I  dare  not 
well  hint  at  such  a  hope  as  that ;  but  you  must 
now  understand  for  good  how  things  are  with 
me;  if  not  that,  then  nothing.  You  take  her 
reference  to  Redgie  Harewood  to  be  a  feint,  and 
meant  spitefully.  I  think  not;  she  has  the 
passion  of  intrigue  and  management  still  strong; 
188 


A   Year's    Letters 

likes  nothing  so  well,  evidently,  as  the  sense 
of  power  to  make  and  break  matches,  build 
schemes  and  overset  them.  I  should  like  to  see 
Harewood  married,  and  peace  again  at  Plessey; 
he  is  not  a  bad  fellow ;  and  she  was  always  fond 
of  him.  I  will  say  he  earned  that  at  Ports- 
mouth, but  I  hate  to  hear  of  his  being  able  to 
write  to  her  now,  and  then  see  and  think  how 
much  there  is  between  us  to  get  over.  If  I 
could  get  at  her  by  any  way  possible,  I  could 
keep  her  up  still — but  I  can  hardly  see  how  he  is 
to  help  her  much.  Then,  again,  if  he  were  to 
marry,  they  might  see  each  other;  and  in  no 
end  of  ways  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  him. 
His  idolatry  is  becoming  a  bore,  if  not  worse; 
you  should  find  him  an  ideal  to  draw  his  worship 
off  you  a  little.  I  know  so  well  now  how  miser- 
able it  is  to  feel  on  a  sudden  the  thing  turn 
serious,  and  have  to  fight  it  before  one  has  time 
to  see  how.  If  it  were  fair  to  tell  you  all  I  have 
had  to  remember  and  regret  only  since  this  year 
began,  and  only  because  I  knew  how,  after 
Cheyne's  death,  her  gentle  goodness  would 
make*  her  wretched  at  the  thought  of  past  dis- 
content with  him  —  and  Heaven  knows  she 
could  not  but  have  felt  him  to  be  less  than  she 
was;  and  perfect  she  was  to  him  always.  I 
wish  people  would  blame  her  to  me,  and  let  me 
fight  them.  I  can't  fight  her  for  blaming  her- 
189 


Love's   Cross-currents 

self.  I  write  the  awfullest  stuff,  because  I  am 
really  past  writing  at  all.  If  I  could  fall  to 
work  and  forget,  leave  off  thinking  for  good, 
turn  brute,  it  would  be  only  rational  for  me.  I, 
who  have  helped  to  hurt  her,  and  would  have 
set  myself  against  the  world  to  spare  her,  what 
do  you  conceive  she  thinks  of  me?  This  air 
that  has  nothing  of  her  left  it  chafes  me  to 
breathe.  I  know  how  sometimes  somewhere 
she  remembers  and  misses  things  that  she  had 
got  used  to  —  little  chance  things  that  were 
about  her  in  her  husband's  time.  A  book  or 
two  of  hers  were  left;  you  will  see  them  when 
you  come ;  I  cannot  write,  and  cannot  send  them 
without  a  word.  I  am  more  thoroughly  afraid 
of  hearing  from  Lady  M.  again  than  I  ever  was 
of  anything  on  earth — no  child  could  dread  any 
torture  as  I  do  that.  It  is  quite  clear,  you 
know,  that  they  expect  a  confinement — in  some 
months'  time,  perhaps.  God  knows  I  wish 
there  had  been  a  son!  Only  they  will  not  say 
it;  so  I  must  stay  here  and  take  my  trouble. 
It  does  not  startle  me :  nothing  can  well  be  worse 
for  me  or  better  than  it  is  now.  There  is  no 
such  pleasure  to  be  had  out  of  my  name  or 
house  that  I  need  want  to  fight  for  it  or  hold  to 
it.  I  do  hope  they  will  make  things  good  to  her. 
You  need  hardly  express  anger  about  the  poor 
aunt.  Those  two  are  her  children,  and  she 
190 


A  Year's    Letters 

always  rather  hated  us  for  their  sakes.  In- 
deed, as  about  Reginald,  I  am  not  sure  she  is 
so  far  out  of  the  way.  You  must  see  that 
Ernest  flinches  now  and  then  when  he  is  talked 
of;  and,  without  any  fear  of  scandal,  one  may 
want  to  avoid  the  look  of  it.  He  is  not  the  sort 
of  fellow  to  be  sure  of;  not  that  he  is  a  bad  sort. 
Enfin  (as  she  says),  you  know  what  it  means — 
Ernest  is  not  great  in  the  way  of  company, 
and  Redgie  and  you  are  just  good  friends;  the 
woman  is  not  really  fool  enough  to  think  evil, 
though  she  is  rather  of  the  vulturine  order  as  to 
beak  and  diet.  For  the  rest,  I  know  how  wise 
and  kind  you  are — it  is  a  shame  to  lean  on  you 
as  I  do,  but  you  are  safe  to  come  to. 


XXIV 

LADY  CHEYNE  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

Ashton  Hildred,  Nov.  azd. 

MY  DEAR  CLARA: 

I  HAVE  got  leave  to  write  and  thank  you. 
Nothing  has  made  me  so  happy  for  a  long  time 
as  to  know  how  kind  you  have  been,  and  that 
you  are  still  such  good  friends  with  me.  It 
was  no  want  of  thankfulness  to  you  that  made 
me  leave  Portsmouth  in  that  horrid  way  to  get 
home  here.  I  knew  how  good  you  had  been, 
and  you  are  not  to  make  me  out  too  bad.  To 
hear  from  you,  even  such  a  little  word,  was 
nicer  than  to  get  the  things  you  sent.  But  I 
was  as  glad  as  I  could  be  to  have  some  of  them 
back.  I  would  never  have  let  any  one  send 
for  them  to  Lidcombe,  so  it  was  all  the  kinder 
of  you  to  do  it  this  way.  I  hope  you  will  all 
be  well  there,  and  quite  happy  while  you  stay. 
It  is  nice  to  think  of  people  about  the  poor 
house.  They  are  all  bent  on  making  me  out 
ill.  I  am  not  ill  in  the  least;  only  faint  now 
and  then,  and  always  very  tired.  I  am  terribly 

192 


A   Year's    Letters 

tired  now  all  my  life  through,  awake  and 
asleep.  I  feel  as  if  there  was  nothing  nice  to 
tjhink  of  in  the  world,  and  as  if  it  were  easier  to 
begin  crying  than  thinking.  It  is  only  because 
I  am  foolish  naturally  and  afraid  to  face  things. 
If  people  were  less  good  to  me  I  should  be  just 
as  afraid  to  feel  at  all,  or  at  least  to  say  I  did. 
But  good  as  they  are  now,  my  own  nearest 
friends  here  could  not  have  been  better  to  me 
than  I  know  you  were  then — writing  letters  and 
nursing  and  saving  me  all  sorts  of  wretched 
things.  You  were  as  good  as  Reginald,  and  I 
had  only  you  two  to  help  me  through,  but  you 
did  all  that  could  be  done,  both  of  you,  and  I 
knew  you  did.  When  I  am  most  tired  and 
would  like  to  let  go  of  everything  else,  I  try  to 
hold  on  to  my  remembrance  of  that.  If  I  had 
not  been  a  little  worthy  to  be  pitied,  I  hope  now 
and  then  you  would  not  have  been  quite  so 
good. 

I  am  sorrier  than  I  can  say  to  hear  how 
foolish  you  think  him.  Ever  since  that  I  have 
thought  of  you  two  together.  You  say  it  so 
kindly,  too,  that  it  is  wretched  to  hear  said.  I 
do  hope  it  is  only  his  silly  candid  habit  of 
showing  things  he  feels  and  thinks — he  always 
thought  about  you  so  much  and  in  such  an 
excited  way.  You  are  so  much  beyond  me, 
and  except  us  two  he  never  had  any  close  ally 
i93 


Love's   Cross-currents 

among  his  own  relations;  there  are  hardly  any 
other  women,  you  know.  If  I  had  been  like 
you  it  would  have  been  different;  but  so  few 
people  will  take  him  at  his  best,  poor  boy, 
and  I  am  so  little  use,  though  he  is  fond  of 
me. 

I  had  got  a  sort  of  hint  from  my  grand- 
mother which  broke  the  surprise  of  the  news 
you  send  me.  I  hope,  as  you  seem  to  wish  for 
it,  that  Mademoiselle  de  Rochelaurier  and  your 
brother  may  have  all  things  turn  out  as  they 
would  like ;  and  I  shall  be  as  happy  as  possible 
to  know  they  do.  It  is  not  the  least  a  painful 
hearing  to  me  that  there  will  be  a  wedding  at 
the  right  time.  I  am  only  too  glad  there  should 
be  some  one  there,  and  I  am  sure,  if  you  both 
are  so  fond  of  her,  she  must  be  perfectly  nice. 
Tell  me  when  to  congratulate.  I  wish  I  had 
ever  seen  her;  nobody  here  knows  at  all  what 
she  is  like.  But  I  seem  to  have  heard  people 
say  her  mother  is  not  pretty. 

They  will  not  let  me  write  any  more — my  pen 
is  to  be  dragged  off  if  I  try.  And  really  there 
is  this  much  reason  in  it,  that  I  am  most  stupidly 
tired,  and  see  myself  opposite  too  hideous  to 
speak  of.  I  feel  as  if  I  were  running  down;  but 
I  don't  mean  to  run  out  for  some  time  yet.  So 
don't  let  there  be  any  one  put  out  on  such  a 
foolish  account  as  that.  I  hope  Mr.  Radworth's 
194 


A    Year's    Letters 

head  and  eyes  keep  better;  they  are  of  rather 
more  value  than  mine,  and  I  am  always  sorry  to 
hear  of  his  going  back  in  health.  My  love  to 
Redgie,  and  try  to  make  him  good. 


XXV 

REGINALD  HAREWOOD  TO  EDWARD  AUDLEY 

Lidcombe.  Dec.  1 5th. 

I  AM  not  coming  out  at  all.  I  can't  now; 
the  whole  concern  is  blown  up.  I  have  had  a 
most  awful  row  with  my  father ;  you  know  the 
sort  of  way  he  always  does  write  and  talk ;  and 
two  months  ago  he  gave  me  the  most  incredible 
blowing  up — I  suppose  no  fellow  ever  got  such 
a  letter.  So  I  just  dropped  into  him  by  return 
of  post,  and  let  the  whole  thing  lie  over.  He 
chose  to  pitch  into  her  too,  in  the  most  offen- 
sive way.  Now  I'm  not  going  to  behave  like 
a  sneak  to  her  because  she  is  too  good  for  them. 
She  trusts  me  in  the  most  beautiful  way.  I 
would  give  up  the  whole  earth  for  her.  Frank 
would  have  made  an  end  of  that  fellow  long 
ago  if  he  had  the  right  sort  of  pluck.  And  you 
see  a  man  can't  let  himself  be  bullied  into 
skulking.  It's  all  fair  chaffing  about  it  if  you 
please,  but  you  don't  in  the  least  know  what 
the  real  thing  is  like.  Here  she  is  tied  down 
and  obliged  to  let  that  sort  of  animal  talk  to 
196 


A   Year's    Letters 

her,  and  go  about  with  her,  and  take  her  by 
the  hand  or  arm — I  tell  you  I  have  seen  it.  It 
was  like  seeing  a  stone  thrown  at  her.  And 
she  speaks  to  him  without  wincing.  I  do  think 
the  courage  of  women  is  something  unknown. 
I  should  run  twenty  times  a  day  if  I  couldn't 
fight.  He  brings  her  specimens  of  things. 
You  can't  conceive  what  a  voice  and  face  and 
manner  the  fellow  has.  She  lets  him  talk 
about  his  symptoms.  He  tells  me  he  wishes 
he  could  eat  what  I  can.  It  would  be  all  very 
well  if  he  had  anything  great  about  him.  I 
suppose  women  can  put  up  with  men  that 
have;  but  a  mere  ingenious  laborious  pedant 
and  prig,  and  a  fellow  that  has  hardly  human 
ways,  imagine  worshipping  that!  I  believe  he 
is  a  clever  sort  of  half-breed  between  ape  and 
beaver.  But  the  sort  of  thing  cannot  go  on. 
I  found  her  yesterday  by  herself  in  the  li- 
brary here,  looking  out  references  for  him.  The 
man  was  by  way  of  being  ill  up-stairs.  She 
spoke  to  me  with  a  sort  of  sad  laugh  in  her 
eyes,  not  smiling;  and  her  brows  winced,  as 
they  never  do  for  him,  whatever  he  says.  She 
is  so  gentle  and  perfect  when  he  is  there;  and 
I  feel  like  getting  mad.  Well,  somehow  I  let 
her  see  I  knew  what  an  infernal  shame  it  was, 
and  she  said  wives  were  meant  for  the  work. 
Then  I  began  and  told  her  she  had  no  sort  of 
14  J97 


Love's    Cross-currents 

right  to  take  it  in  that  way,  and  she  couldn't 
expect  any  fellow  to  stand  and  look  on  while 
such  things  were — and  I  would  as  soon  have 
looked  on  at  Haynau  any  day.  I  dare  say  I 
talked  no  end  of  folly,  but  I  was  regularly  off 
my  head.  Unless  she  throws  me  over  I  will 
never  give  her  up.  She  never  will  let  her 
brother  know  how  things  are  with  her.  But 
to  see  him  sit  by  her  ought  to  be  enough  for  a 
man  with  eyes  and  a  heart.  I  know  you  were 
a  good  deal  in  love  last  year,  but  Miss  Charn- 
worth  couldn't  have  put  anybody  into  such  a 
tender  fever  of  pity  as  this  one  puts  me;  you 
can't  be  sorry  for  her;  and  I  don't  think  you 
can  absolutely  worship  anything  you  are  not 
a  little  sorry  for.  To  have  to  pity  what  is  such 
a  way  above  you,  no  one  could  stand  that.  It 
gives  one  the  wish  to  be  hurt  for  her.  I  think 
I  should  let  him  insult  me  and  strike  me  if  she 
wanted  it.  Nothing  hurts  me  now  but  the 
look  of  her.  She  has  sweet  heavy  eyes,  like  an 
angel's  in  some  great  strange  pain;  eyes  with- 
out fear  or  fault  in  them,  which  look  out  over 
coming  tears  that  never  come.  There  is  a 
sort  of  look  about  her  lips  and  under  the  eye- 
lids as  if  some  sorrow  had  pressed  there  with 
his  finger,  out  of  love  for  her  beauty,  and  left 
the  mark.  I  believe  she  knew  I  wanted  her 
to  come  away.  If  there  were  only  somewhere 
198 


A  Year's    Letters 

to  take  her  to  and  hide  her,  and  let  her  live  in 
her  own  way,  out  of  all  their  sight  and  reach, 
that  would  do  for  me.  I  tell  you,  she  took  my 
hands  sadly  into  hers  and  never  said  a  word, 
but  looked  sideways  at  the  floor,  and  gave  a 
little  beginning  kind  of  sigh  twice;  and  I  got 
mad.  I  don't  know  how  I  prayed  to  her  to 
come  then.  But  she  turned  on  me  with  her 
face  trembling  and  shining,  and  eyes  that 
looked  wet  without  crying,  and  made  me  stop. 
Then  she  took  the  books  and  went  out,  and  up 
to  him.  Do  you  imagine  I  can  be  off  and  on, 
or  play  tricks  with  my  love,  for  such  a  woman 
as  that?  Because  of  my  father,  perhaps,  or 
Ernest  Radworth?  She  has  a  throat  like 
pearl-colour,  with  flower-colour  over  that;  and 
a  smell  of  blossom  and  honey  in  her  hair.  No 
one  on  earth  is  so  infinitely  good  as  she  is. 
Her  fingers  leave  a  taste  of  violets  on  the  lips. 
She  is  greater  in  her  mind  and  spirit  than  men 
with  great  names.  Only  she  never  lets  her 
greatness  of  heart  out  in  words.  I  don't  think 
now  that  her  eyes  are  hazel.  She  has  in  her 
the  royal  scornful  secret  of  a  great  silence. 
Her  hair  and  eyelashes  change  colour  in  the 
sun.  I  shall  never  come  to  know  all  she  thinks 
of.  I  believe  she  is  doing  good  somewhere 
with  her  thoughts.  She  is  a  great  angel,  and 
has  charge  of  souls.  She  has  clear  thick  eye- 
199 


Love's   Cross-currents 

brows  that  grow  well  down,  coming  full  upon 
the  upper  lid,  with  no  gap  such  as  there  is 
above  some  women's  eyes  before  you  come  to 
the  brow.  They  have  an  inexplicable  beauty 
of  meaning  in  them,  and  the  shape  of  the  arch 
of  them  looks  tender.  She  has  charge  of  me 
for  one.  I  must  have  been  a  beast  or  a  fool 
if  there  had  not  been  such  a  face  as  that  in  the 
world.  She  has  the  texture  and  colour  of  rose- 
leaves  crushed  deep  into  the  palms  of  her 
hands.  She  can  forgive  and  understand  and 
be  angry  at  the  right  time:  things  that  women 
never  can  do.  You  know  Lady  Midhurst  is 
set  dead  against  her,  and  full  of  the  most  in- 
fernal prejudice.  The  best  of  them  are  cruel 
and  dull  about  each  other.  I  let  out  at  her 
(Lady  M.,  that  is),  one  day  when  we  spoke  of 
it,  and  she  stopped  me.  "She  is  always  very 
good  to  you,"  she  said;  which  is  true  enough. 
"  You  and  your  sister  are  her  children,  and  she 
always  rather  hated  Frank  and  me  for  your 
sakes.  I  like  her  none  the  worse,  for  my  part. 
I  don't  know  that  she  is  so  far  wrong  about 
you.  Once  I  could  have  wanted  her  to  like 
me,  but  we  must  put  up  with  people's  deficien- 
cies. It  is  very  unreasonable,  of  course,  but 
she  does  not  like  me  in  the  least,  I  quite  know" : 
and  the  way  she  smiled  over  this  no  one  could 
understand  without  knowing  her.  "  Only  there 

200 


A  Year's   Letters 

is  one  thing  to  be  sorry  about :  that  hard  pointed 
way  of  handling  things  leaves  her  with  the 
habit  of  laughter  that  shrinks  up  the  heart  she 
has  by  inches."  Those  words  stuck  to  me. 
"  If  she  believed  or  felt  more  than  she  does,  her 
cleverness  and  kindness  would  work  so  much 
better.  As  it  is,  one  can  never  go  to  her  for 
warmth  or  rest;  and  one  cannot  live  on  the 
sharp  points  of  phrases.  She  has  edges  in  her 
eyes,  and  thorns  in  her  words.  That  perpetual 
sardonic  patience  which  sits  remarking  on 
right  and  wrong  with  cold  folded  hands  and 
equable  observant  eyes,  half  contemptuous  in 
an  artistic  way  of  those  who  choose  either — 
that  cruel  tolerance  and  unmerciful  compassion 
for  good  and  bad — that  long  tacit  inspection, 
as  of  a  dilettante  cynic  bidden  report  critically 
on  the  creatures  in  the  world,  that  custom  of 
choosing  her  point  of  view  where  she  can  see 
the  hard  side  of  things  glitter  and  the  hard  side 
of  characters  refract  light  in  her  eyes,  till  she 
comes  (if  one  durst  say  so)  to  patronize  God 
by  dint  of  despising  men — oh,  it  gets  horrid 
after  a  time!  It  takes  the  heart  out  of  all 
great  work.  Her  world  would  stifle  the  Gari- 
baldis. It  is  all  dust  and  sand,  jewels  and  iron, 
dead  metal  and  stone,  and  dry  sunshine:  like 
some  fearful  rich  no-man's  land.  I  could  as 
soon  read  the  'Chartreuse  de  Parme'  as  listen 

20J 


Love's    Cross-currents 

to  her  talk  long;  it  is  Stendhal  diluted  and 
transmuted;  and  I  never  could  read  cynicism." 
You  see  how  her  thoughts  get  hold  of  one;  I 
was  reminded  of  her  first  words,  and  the  whole 
thing  came  back  on  me.  She  said  just  that; 
I  know  the  turn  of  her  eyes  and  head  as  she 
spoke,  and  how  her  cheeks  and  neck  quivered 
here  and  there.  Then  she  made  all  excuses, 
the  gentlest  wise  allowances;  you  see  what  a 
mind  and  spirit  she  has.  She  keeps  always 
splendid  and  right.  She  can  understand  un- 
kindness  to  herself,  you  see;  never  dreaming 
that  nothing  can  be  so  unnatural  as  that;  but 
not  a  dry  ignoble  tone  of  heart  and  narrow 
hardness  of  eye.  Not  to  love  greatness  and 
abhor  baseness,  each  for  its  own  sake — that  is 
the  sort  of  thing  she  finds  unforgivable  and  in- 
comprehensible. She  would  make  all  things 
that  are  not  evil  and  have  not  to  be  gone  right 
at  and  fought  with  till  they  give  in  brave  and 
just,  full  of  the  beauty  of  goodness  and  a  noble 
liberty:  all  men  fit  men  to  honour,  and  all 
women  fit  women  to  adore. 

That  is  what  she  is.  Only  if  I  were  to  write 
for  ever,  and  find  you  in  heavy  reading  for  cen- 
turies, I  should  never  get  to  express  a  thing 
about  her.  Fancy  any  one  talking  about  that 
little  Rochelaurier  girl.  She  does,  and  to  me, 
or  did  till  I  made  her  see  it  was  no  use,  and  I 

202 


A  Year's    Letters 

didn't  like  it  as  chaff.  Philomene  is  a  good 
pretty  child,  and  as  to  heart  and  mind  believes 
in  Pius  Iscariot  and  the  vermin  run  to  earth 
this  year  at  Gaeta.  They  think  my  father 
might  put  up  with  that.  He  used  to  admire 
the  men  of  December  till  they  did  something 
to  frighten  the  ruminant  British  bull  at  his 
fodder,  and  set  that  sweet  animal  lowing  and 
thrusting  out  volunteer  bayonets,  by  way  of 
horns,  in  brute  self-defence.  I  remember  well 
how  he  spoke  once  of  the  Beauharnais  to  me,  b 
propos  of  my  reading  Chatiments  one  vacation. 
It  was  before  you  went  down,  I  think,  that  we 
had  a  motion  up  about  that  pickpocket.  My 
father  believes  in  the  society  that  was  saved; 
he  holds  tight  to  the  salvation-by-damnation 
theory.  "A  strong  man  and  born  master" — 
all  that  style  of  thing,  you  know.  Liberty 
means  cheese  to  one's  bread,  then  honey,  then 
turtle-fat.  Libre  a  vous,  MM.  les  doctrinaires! 
What  infinite  idiocy  and  supreme  imbecility 
to  get  hanged,  burnt,  crucified,  for  one's  cause! 
You  want  proof  you  are  a  fool  ? — you  are  beat- 
en; all's  said.  The  smoke  of  the  martyr's  pile 
is  the  refutation  of  the  martyr — in  the  nostrils 
of  a  pig.  And  when  people  have  ideas  like 
that,  and  act  on  them,  how  can  one  expect 
them  to  see  the  simplest  things  rightly?  How 
should  they  know  a  great  spirit  or  noble  in- 
203 


Love's   Cross-currents 

tellect  from  a  base  little  one?  Souls  don't 
carry  badges  for  such  people  to  know  them  by ; 
and  whatever  does  not  walk  in  uniform  or 
livery  they  cannot  take  into  account.  As  to 
me,  and  I  suppose  all  men  who  are  not  spoilt 
or  fallen  stolid  are  much  the  same,  when  I  see 
a  great  goodness  I  know  it — when  I  meet  my 
betters  I  want  to  worship  them  at  once,  and  I 
can  always  tell  when  any  one  is  born  my  better. 
When  I  fall  in  with  a  nature  and  powers  above 
me,  I  cannot  help  going  down  before  it.  I  do 
like  admiring;  service  of  one's  masters  must  be 
good  for  one,  it  is  so  perfectly  pleasant.  Then, 
too,  one  can  never  go  wrong  on  this  tack.  I 
feel  my  betters  in  my  blood ;  they  send  a  heat 
and  sting  all  through  one  at  first  sight.  And 
the  delight  of  feeling  small  and  giving  in  when 
one  does  get  sight  of  them  is  beyond  words — it 
seems  to  me  all  the  same  whether  they  beat 
one  in  wisdom  and  great  gifts  and  power,  or  in 
having  been  splendid  soldiers  or  great  exiles, 
or  just  in  being  beautiful.  It  is  just  as  reason- 
able to  worship  one  sort  as  the  other;  they  are 
all  one's  betters,  and  were  made  for  one  to 
come  down  on  one's  knees  to,  clearly  enough. 
Victor  Hugo  or  Miss  Cherbury  the  actress, 
Tennyson  or  a  fellow  who  rode  in  the  Bala- 
klava  charge  when  you  and  I  were  in  the  fifth 
form,  we  must  knock  under  and  be  thankful 
204 


A   Year's    Letters 

for  having  them  over  our  heads  somewhere  in 
the  world;  and  small  thanks  to  us.  But  when 
men  who  are  by  no  means  our  betters  won't 
do  so  much  as  this,  and  want  to  walk  into  us 
for  doing  it,  I  don't  see  at  all  that  one  is  bound 
to  stand  that.  So  that  if  I  am  ever  to  be 
turned  out  of  my  way,  it  won't  be  by  anything 
my  father  may  say  or  do. 

I  suspect  you  repent  of  writing  and  reading 
by  this  time ;  but  please  remember  how  you  did 
go  into  me  last  year  about  Eleanor;  and  you 
know  by  this  time  there  was  not  so  much  even 
for  a  fellow  in  love  to  say  about  her. 
Yours  always, 

R.  E.  HAREWOOD. 


Ashton  Hildred.  Jan.  14th.  1862 

MY  DEAREST  REGINALD: 

I  AM  writing  to-day  instead  of  our  grand- 
mother. She  is  very  unwell,  and  wants  you 
to  hear  from  us.  They  will  not  let  her  trouble 
or  exert  herself  in  any  way,  but  she  is  bent  on 
your  getting  a  word;  so,  as  I  am  well  enough 
to  write,  I  must  take  her  place.  I  am  afraid 
she  is  upset  on  your  account.  I  think  she  has 
even  exchanged  letters  with  your  father  about 
it.  They  seem  to  fear  something  very  bad  for 
you.  You  know  by  this  time  how  much  we 
both  love  you,  and  ought  to  care  a  little  for  us. 
I  know  I  must  not  talk  now  as  if  I  could  fall 
back  on  self-esteem  or  self-reliance.  I  don't 
the  least  want  to  appeal  in  that  style,  but  just 
to  plead  with  you  as  well  as  I  may.  I  am 
stupid  enough,  too,  and  can't  put  things  well; 
only,  except  the  people  here  at  home,  you  are 
the  one  person  left  me  that  I  may  let  myself 
love.  I  am  very  grateful  to  you,  and  I  beg 
206 


A    Year's    Letters 

you  to  let  me  come  in  this  way  to  you.  You 
must  see  that  there  is  nobody  now  that  I  love 
as  well.  I  want  you  to  remember  as  I  do  how 
good  you  were  once.  If  I  am  ill  it  comes  of 
miserable  thought.  You  talk  of  her  com- 
passionate noble  nature.  Dearest,  if  she  has 
any  mercy,  let  her  show  it  and  save  you.  It 
is  cruel  to  make  people  play  with  poison  in  this 
way.  I  would  not  blame  her  for  worlds.  I 
want  to  thank  her  and  keep  good  friends,  but 
she  must  not  let  you  run  to  ruin.  Think  what 
imaginable  good  end  can  there  be  to  this?  I 
suppose  she  is  infinitely  clever  and  brave,  as 
you  say,  but  how  can  she  face  things  for  you? 
Every  one  would  say  the  horridest  things.  Do 
you  want  shame  for  her  ?  It  would  break  your 
life  up  at  the  beginning.  I  have  no  right  to 
accuse  —  should  have  none  anyhow — >.but  one 
has  always  a  right  to  be  sorry.  I  see  you  could 
not  be  happy  even  if  all  were  given  up  on  both 
sides.  Don't  let  her  give  all  up.  I  dare  say 
she  might;  and  that  of  course  is  braver  than 
any  treason.  If  you  knew  my  own  great 
misery!  Sometimes  I  feel  the  whole  air  hot 
about  me;  I  should  like  to  cry  and  moan  out 
loud,  or  beat  myself.  I  am  not  old,  and  if  I 
live  all  my  time  out  I  shall  never  feel  as  if  my 
face  had  a  natural  look.  I  wish  I  were  very 
old,  and  gone  foolish.  I  was  false  in  every 

207 


Love's   Cross-currents 

word  and  thought  I  had.  I  cannot  kill  my- 
self, you  see,  even  by  writing  it  down.  Think- 
ing of  it  only  hurts,  without  doing  harm ;  I  want 
to  be  done  harm  to.  I  never  spoke  to  you  at 
Portsmouth.  If  you  never  did  know,  you  see 
now.  I  thought  you  all  knew.  I  seemed  to 
myself  to  have  the  eyes  of  a  woman  who  has 
been  cheating  and  lying  to  some  one  just  dead. 
I  was  penitent  enough  to  have  had  the  mark 
on  me.  It  would  be  better  than  playing  false, 
to  leave  her  husband.  But  then  she  takes  you 
— your  life  and  all.  I  do  think  she  must  not 
be  let.  I  hate  repeating  what  was  said  vicious- 
ly; and  God  knows  I  must  not  talk  or  think 
scandal :  but  Madame  de  Rochelaurier,  her  own 
friend  and  yours,  says  things  about  her  and  M. 
de  Saverny;  it  is  no  unkindness  of  my  grand- 
mother's. She  does  not  like  Clara  now,  but 
she  is  clear  of  all  that,  quite.  And  there  were 
letters,  certainly.  Madame  de  Rochelaurier 
said  so;  they  were  the  cleverest  she  ever  saw, 
but  not  good  to  write.  It  was  two  or  three 
years  ago;  M.  de  Saverny  let  her  see  them.  It 
was  base  and  wretched,  and  he  keeps  them. 
He  is  a  detestable  man;  but  you  cannot  get 
over  that.  I  believe  no  harm  of  her;  only  you 
will  not  let  her  take  you  from  us.  You  must 
see  it  would  be  the  end  of  all  our  pleasure  and 
hope.  People  would  laugh  too.  If  you  want 
208 


A  Year's    Letters 

to  stand  by  C.,  as  you  say,  how  can  you  begin 
by  helping  people  to  scandal?  I  am  so  sorry 
for  you,  I  know  you  are  too  fond  of  her  and 
good  to  her,  and  would  never  give  her  up ;  and 
I  am  not  fit  to  help.  Still,  whatever  I  am,  I 
do  know  there  must  be  right  and  wrong  some- 
how in  the  world.  You  should  not  make  so 
much  misery.  I  don't  mean  as  to  the  people 
nearest  you  both.  On  your  side  of  course  I 
cannot  tell  you  how  to  look  at  things;  and  as 
to  hers  I  can  only  be  sorry,  and  am  very.  But 
you  know,  after  all,  my  mother  is  something 
to  you  while  she  lives;  you  are  my  very  own 
brother  and  dearest  one  friend.  I  wish  you 
might  see  her.  She  is  so  full  of  the  tenderest 
beautiful  ways.  I  know  what  she  hears  hurts 
her.  She  shows  little,  but  she  cried  when  our 
grandmother  gave  her  letters  to  read.  You 
might  be  so  good  to  us,  for  we  can  never  do 
anything  or  be  much  to  you.  If  evil  comes  of 
this  I  shall  think  we  were  all  born  to  it.  There 
will  be  no  one  left  to  think  of  or  speak  to  with- 
out some  afterthought  or  aftertaste  of  memory 
and  shame.  The  names  nearest  ours  will  have 
stings  in  them  to  make  us  wince.  It  is  not  good 
for  us  to  try  and  face  the  world.  It  has  beaten 
all  that  ever  took  heart  to  stand  up  against  it. 
Surely  there  is  something  just  and  good  in  it, 
whatever  we  think  or  say,  let  it  look  ever  so 
209 


Love's    Cross-currents 

unfair  and  press  ever  so  hard.  I  write  this  as 
well  as  I  can,  but  it  is  very  hard  to  write.  I 
cannot  make  way  any  further:  my  head  and 
hand  and  eyes  ache,  and  the  sight  of  the  words 
written  down  makes  me  feel  sick;  the  letters 
seem  to  get  in  at  my  eyes  and  burn  behind 
them.  You  must  be  good  and  bear  with  my 
letter. 

With  all  our  loves,  I  remain 

Your  affectionate  sister, 

A.  C. 


XXVII 

REGINALD  HAREWOOD  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

London,  Jan.  igih. 

I  WILL  wait  for  you  till  your  own  time ;  only, 
my  dearest,  I  will  not  have  you  wait  out  of  pity 
or  fear.  All  that  is  done  with :  my  time  is  here, 
with  me ;  I  have  the  day  by  the  hand,  and  hold 
it  by  the  hair.  We  have  counted  all  and  found 
nothing  better  than  love.  I  do  just  hope  there 
may  be  something  for  me  to  give  up  or  go  with- 
out: I  see  nothing  yet.  You  are  so  far  much 
better  to  me  than  all  I  ever  knew  of.  I  sit  and 
make  your  face  out  between  *the  words,  and 
stop  writing  to  look.  You  ought  to  have  given 
me  that  broken  little  turquoise  thing  you  used 
to  have  hung  to  your  watch.  I  wonder  all  men 
who  ever  saw  you  do  not  come  to  get  you  away 
from  me — fight  me  for  you  at  least ;  for  I  shall 
never  let  you  out  of  my  hands  when  I  have  you 
well  in  them.  If  one  had  seen  you  and  let  you 
slip!  I  knew  I  should  get  you  some  day  or  die. 
Because  I  was  never  the  least  worth  it.  Be- 
cause you  need  not  have  been  so  good,  when 

211 


Love's    Cross-currents 

you  were  so  beautiful  that  nothing  you  did 
could  set  you  off.  But  you  know  I  loved  you 
ages  first.  When  I  was  a  boy,  and  got  sight  of 
you,  I  knew  stupidly  somehow  you  were  the 
best  thing  there  was.  You  were  very  perfect 
as  a  child;  I  know  the  clear  look  of  your  tem- 
ples under  the  hair;  and  the  fresh  delicious 
tender  girl's  hair  drawn  off  and  made  a  crown 
with.  I  want  to  know  what  one  was  to  have 
done  without  that?  I  don't  think  you  cared 
about  me  a  year  ago- — not  the  least,  my  love 
that  is  now.  I  had  to  play  Palomydes  to  your 
Iseult  a  good  bit ;  but  are  you  ever  going  to  be 
afraid  of  the  old  king  in  Cornwall  after  this? 
as  if  we  were  not  any  one's  match,  and  any- 
thing we  please. 

Je  serai  grand,  et  toi  riche, 
Puisqt^e  nous  nous  aimerons. 

You  shall  scent  me  out  the  music  to  that 
some  day ;  the  song  made  of  the  sound  of  flow- 
ers and  colour  of  music :  you  ought  to  know  the 
notes  that  go  to  the  other  version  of  it.  We 
shall  have  such  a  love  in  our  life  that  all  the 
ends  of  it  will  be  sweet.  You  will  not  care  too 
much  about  the  people  that  could  be  of  no  use 
to  you.  Could  a  brother  save  you  when  you 
wanted  saving?  Besides,  I  have  hold  of  you. 
The  whole  world  has  no  claim  or  right  in  it  any 
212 


A    Year's    Letters 

longer  to  set  against  mine.  Let  those  come 
that  want  you,  and  see  if  I  let  go  of  you  for 
any  man.  There  will  not  be  an  inch  of  time, 
not  a  corner  of  our  life,  without  some  delicious 
thing  in  it.  Let  them  tell  us  what  we  are  to 
have  instead  if  we  give  each  other  up.  I  shall 
get  to  be  worth  something  to  you  in  time. 
You  say  now  you  never  found  anything  yet 
that  had  the  likeness  of  your  mate.  I  have 
much  more  of  you  than  all  the  earth  could  de- 
serve ;  I  should  like  to  see  myself  jealous  of  old 
fancies  in  a  dead  dream.  That  poor  child  at 
A.  H.  writes  me  piteous  little  letters,  in  the 
silliest  helpless  way,  about  the  wrong  of  this 
and  the  right  of  that ;  she  has  been  set  upon  and 
stung  by  some  poisonous  tale-bearing  or  other ; 
she  wants  one  to  forbear  loving  for  others' 
sake,  and  absolutely  cites  her  own  poor  terri- 
fied little  repentance  after  her  husband's  death, 
on  remembering  some  unborn-baby-ghost  of  a 
flirtation  which  she  never  told — some  innocu- 
ous preference  which  sticks  to  the  childish  lit- 
tle recollection  like  a  sort  of  remorse.  It  is 
pitiable  enough,  but  too  laughable  as  well ;  for 
on  the  strength  of  it  she  falls  at  once  to  quot- 
ing vicious  phrases  and  transcribing  mere  bat- 
like  infamies  and  stupidities  of  the  owl-eyed 
prurient  sort,  the  base  bitter  talk  of  women 
without  even  such  a  soul  as  serves  for  salt  to 
is  213 


Love's   Cross-currents 

the  carrion  of  their  mind.  We  know  where 
such  promptings  start  from.  What  is  it  to  me, 
if  I  am  to  be  the  man  fit  to  match  with  you  by 
the  right  of  my  delight  in  you,  that  you  have 
tried  to  find  help  or  love  before  we  came  to- 
gether, and  failed  of  it?  Let  them  show  me 
letters  to  disprove  that  I  love  you,  and  I  will 
read  them.  Till  they  do  that  I  mean  to  hold 
to  you,  and  make  you  hold  to  me.  I  thought 
there  had  been  more  in  her  than  one  sees;  but 
she  has  a  pliable,  soft  sort  of  mind,  not  unlike 
her  over-tender,  cased-up,  exotic  sort  of  beauty. 
I  don't  want  women  to  carry  the  sign-mark  of 
them  all  over,  even  to  the  hair.  Hers  always 
looks  sensitive  hair,  and  has  changes  of  colour 
in  it.  A  woman  should  keep  to  the  deep  sweet 
dark,  with  such  a  noble  silence  of  colour  in  the 
depth  of  it — rich  reserved  hair,  with  a  shadow 
and  a  sense  of  its  own  that  wants  no  gilt  set- 
ting of  sunbeams  to  throw  out  the  secret  beauty 
in  it.  I  should  like  to  see  yours  painted ;  that 
would  beat  the  best  of  them.  Promise  I  shall 
have  sight  of  it  again  soon.  I  want  you  as  a 
beggar  wants  bread  to  eat;  I  have  the  sort  of 
desire  after  your  face  that  wounded  men  must 
have  after  water.  I  wish  there  were  some  mark 
of  you  carved  on  me  that  I  might  look  at.  Now 
this  is  come  to  me,  I  wonder  all  day  long  at  all 
the  world.  Nobody  else  has  this ;  but  they  live 
214 


A    Year's    Letters 

in  a  sort  of  way.  I  do  think,  at  times,  that  last 
year  my  poor  little  plaything  of  a  sister  and 
your  brother  were  almost  ready  to  believe  they 
knew  what  it  was — as  you  hear  children  say. 
They  had  the  look  and  behaviour  of  a  girl  and 
boy  playing  themselves  into  belief  in  their  play. 
And  all  the  while  we  have  drawn  the  lot  and 
can  turn  the  prize  over,  toss  and  catch  it  in  our 
hands.  All  little  loves  are  such  poor  food  to 
keep  alive  on:  our  great  desire  and  delight- 
infinite  faith  and  truth  and  pleasure — will  last 
our  lives  out  without  running  short.  You 
know  who  says  there  are  only  three  things  any 
lover  has  to  say:  Je  t'aime;  aime-moi;  merci. 
I  say  the  last  over  for  ever  when  I  fall  to  writ- 
ing. I  thank  you  always  with  all  my  heart 
and  might,  my  darling,  for  being  so  perfect  to 
me.  We  will  go  to  France.  There  will  be 
money.  Write  me  word  when  you  will.  And 
I  love  you.  We  will  have  a  good  fight  with 
the  world  if  it  comes  in  our  way.  Let  us  have 
the  courage  of  our  love,  knowing  it  for  the  best 
thing  there  is.  There  is  so  little,  after  all  has 
been  thought  of,  either  to  brave  or*  to  resign. 
I  shall  make  you  wear  your  hair  the  way  we 
like.  Your  sort  of  walk  and  motion  and  way 
of  sitting  has  just  made  me  think  of  the  doves 
at  Venice  settling  in  the  square,  as  we  shall  see 
them  before  summer.  There  is  a  head  like  you 
215 


Love's    Cross-currents 

in  San  Zanipolo;  a  portrait  head  in  the  right 
corner  of  a  picture  of  the  Virgin  crowned:  we 
shall  see  that.  Only  it  has  thick  curled  gold 
hair,  like  my  sister's.  You  had  that  hair  when 
you  sat  to  Carpaccio;  you  have  had  time  to 
grow  perfecter  in  since.  I  can  smell  the  sweet- 
ness of  the  sea  when  I  think  of  our  journey.  I 
like  signing  my  name,  now  it  has  to  do  with 
you.  My  name  is  a  chattel  of  yours,  and  yours 
a  treasure  of  mine.  Let  it  be  before  spring; 
and  love  me  as  well  as  you  can. 

REGINALD  EDW.  HAREWOOD. 


XXVIII 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  MRS.  RADWORTH 

Ashton  Hildred,  Jan.  joth. 

MY  DEAR  CLARA: 

I  HAVE  not  yet  made  up  my  mind  whether 
or  no  you  will  be  taken  at  unawares  by  the 
news  I  have  to  send  you.  You  must  make  up 
yours  to  accept  it  with  fortitude.  Amy  has 
just  enriched  the  nation,  and  impoverished  your 
brother,  by  the  production  of  a  child — male. 
In  spite  of  her  long  depression  and  illness,  it 
is  a  very  sufficient  infant,  admirable  in  all  their 
eyes  here.  Frank,  I  am  sure,  expected  to  hear 
of  this  in  time.  While  there  was  any  doubt 
as  to  the  child's  (I  mean  Amy's,  and  should  say 
the  mother's)  state  of  health,  we  could  not  re- 
solve on  publishing  the  prospect  of  her  confine- 
ment. I  may  all  but  say  it  was  a  game  of 
counter-chances.  That  it  has  come  to  no  bad 
end  you  will,  I  am  sure,  be  as  glad  as  we  are. 
Eight  months  of  mourning  were  enough  to 
make  one  thoroughly  anxious.  -The  boy  does 
us  as  much  credit  as  anything  so  fat  and  fool- 
217 


Love's    Cross-currents 

ish,  so  red  and  ridiculous,  as  a  new  baby  in 
good  health  can  do.  I  suppose  we  shall  be 
inundated  with  troubles  because  o£  this  totally 
idiotic  fragment  of  flesh  and  fluff,  which  my 
daughter  has  the  front  and  face  to  assert  re- 
sembles its  father's  family — such  is  the  instant 
fruit  of  sudden  promotion  to  grandmother- 
hood.  And  I  am  a  great-grandmother;  and 
not  sixty-two  till  the  month  after  next.  Ar- 
mande  will  never  allow  me  my  rank  as  junior 
again;  yet  I  recollect  her  grown-up  patronage 
of  your  father  and  me  when  we  were  barely  past 
school  age,  and  she  barely  out — la  dame  aux 
belles  cousines  I  called  her,  and  him  le  petit 
Jean  de — what  is  it? — Saintre*?  I  suppose  my 
son-in-law  will  be  guardian.  I  do  hope  nobody 
will  feel  upset  at  this — our  dear  Frank  is  too 
good  a  knight  to  grudge  the  baby  its  birth. 
Poor  little  soft  animal,  one  could  wish  for  all 
our  sakes  some  of  its  belongings  off  the  small 
shoulder  of  it;  but  as  it  has  chosen  to  come, 
they  must  stick  to  it.  Amy  is  in  a  noticeable 
flutter  of  impatience  to  get  the  christening  of 
it  well  over;  she  has  high  views  of  the  matter, 
picked  up  of  late  in  some  religious  quarter. 
Edmund  Reginald  we  mean  to  have  it  made 
into,  and  I  must  have  Redgie  Harewood  to 
come  and  vow  things  for  it — he  will  make  an 
admirable  surety  for  another  boy's  behaviour; 
218 


A   Year's    Letters 

and  the  name  will  do  very  well  to  be  washed 
under — unless,  indeed,  Frank  would  be  chiv- 
alrous enough  to  halve  the  charge;  then  we 
might  bracket  his  name  with  the  poor  father's. 
Don't  ask  him  if  you  think  he  would  rather 
keep  off;  we  don't  want  felicitation,  only  for- 
giveness ;  that  we  must  have.  If  I  had  not  been 
tricked  and  caught  in  the  springe  of  a  sudden 
promise  to  take  the  weighty  spiritual  office  on 
myself,  I  should  implore  you  to  be  godmother. 
As  it  is,  I  suppose  the  sins  and  the  sermons 
must  all  come  under  my  care.  Break  the  news 
as  softly  as  you  can;  there  must  always  be 
something  abrupt,  questionable,  vexatious,  in 
a  business  of  the  sort.  It  is  hard  to  have  to 
oust  one's  friends  and  shift  one's  point  of  view 
at  a  week's  notice.  However,  here  the  child 
is,  and  we  must  set  about  the  management  of 
it.  I  shall  make  Frederick  undertake  the  main 
work  at  once  as  guardian  and  grandfather.  He 
writes  to  Lidcombe  by  this  post.  Amy  is  al- 
ready better  than  she  has  been  for  months,  and 
very  little  pulled  down,  in  spite  of  a  complete 
surprise.  She  makes  a  delicious  double  to  her 
baby,  lying  in  a  tumbled  tortuous  nest  or  net 
of  hair  with  golden  linings,  with  tired  relieved 
eyes  and  a  face  that  flashes  and  subsides  every 
five  minutes  with  a  weary  pleasure — she  glit- 
ters and  undulates  at  every  sight  of  the  child 
219 


Love's    Cross-currents 

as  if  it  were  the  sun  and  she  water  in  the  light 
of  it.  You  see  how  lyrical  one  may  become 
at  an  age  when  one's  grandchildren  have  babies. 
I  should  have  thought  her  the  kind  of  woman 
to  cry  a  fair  amount  of  tears  at  such  a  time, 
but  happily  she  refrains  from  that  ceremonial 
diversion.  She  is  the  image  of  that  quivering 
rest  which  follows  on  long  impassive  trouble, 
and  the  labour  of  days  without  deeds — quiet, 
full  of  life,  eager  and  at  ease.  I  imagine  she 
has  no  memory  or  feeling  left  her  from  the  days 
that  were  before  yesterday.  She  and  the  baby 
were  born  at  one  birth,  and  know  each  as  much 
as  the  other  of  the  people  and  things  that  went 
on  before  that. 

Get  your  husband  to  take  a  human  view  of 
the  matter — I  suppose  his  ideas  of  a  baby 
which  is  neither  zoophyte  nor  fossil  are  rather 
of  the  vaporous  and  twilight  order  of  thought 
— and  bring  him  down  for  the  christianizing 
part  of  the  show,  if  he  will  condescend  so  far. 
He  could  take  a  note  or  two  on  the  process  of 
animal  development  by  stages,  and  the  de- 
cidedly misty  origin  of  that  comic  species  to 
which  our  fat  present  sample  of  fleshly  goods 
may  belong. 

About  Reginald :  I  may  as  well  now  say,  once 
for  all,  that  I  think  I  can  promise  to  relieve  you 
for  good  of  any  annoyance  in  that  quarter.  We 
220 


A   Year's    Letters 

must  both  of  us  by  this  time  be  really  glad  of  any 
excuse  to  knock  his  folly  about  you  on  the  head. 
Here  is  my  plan  of  action,  to  be  played  out  if 
necessary;  if  you  have  a  better,  please  let  me 
know  of  it  in  time,  before  I  shuffle  and  deal; 
you  see  I  show  you  my  hand  in  the  most  per- 
fectly frank  way.  That  dear  good  Armande, 
who  really  has  an  exquisite  comprehension  of 
us  all  and  our  small  difficulties,  has  got  (Heaven 
I  hope  knows  how,  but  I  need  hardly  say  I 
don't)  a  set  of  old  letters  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
stmillant  and  seductive  M.  de  Saverny  fils,  and 
put  them  into  mine,  where  you  cannot  doubt 
they  are  in  much  better  keeping.  Octave  is 
not  exactly  the  typical  braggart,  but  there  is 
a  dash  in  him  of  that  fearful  man  in  Madame 
Bovary — the  first  lover,  I  mean;  varnished  of 
course,  and  well  kept  down,  but  the  little  grain 
of  that  base  nature  does  leaven  and  flavour  the 
whole  man.  He  will  never  have,  never  so 
much  as  understand,  the  splendid  courtesy  and 
noble  reticence  of  a  past  age.  His  father  had 
twice  his  pretensions  and  less  than  half  his 
pretension;  and  so  it  will  be  with  all  the  race. 
Knowing  as  you  do  now  that  the  papers  exist, 
you  must  feel  reasonably  glad  to  be  well  out 
of  his  hands.  Not,  of  course,  my  dear  niece, 
that  I  could  for  one  second  conceive  you  have 
what  people  would  call  any  reason  to  be  glad 

231 


Love's   Cross-currents 

of  such  a  thing,  or  that  I  would,  in  the  remotest 
way,  insinuate  that  there  was  even  so  much  as 
seeming  indiscretion  on  one  side.  But  when  you 
permitted  Octave  to  open  up  on  that  tack,  you 
were  not  old  or  stupid  enough  to  see,  what  duller 
eyes  could  hardly  have  missed  of,  the  use  your 
innocence  might  be  put  to  —  a  thing,  to  me, 
touching  and  terrible  to  think  of.  Cleverness, 
like  goodness,  makes  the  young  less  quick  to 
apprehend  wrong  or  anticipate  misconstruction 
than  stupid  old  people  are.  In  this  case  my 
heavy-headed  experience  might  have  been  a 
match  for  your  rapid  bright  sense.  I  have 
hardly  looked  at  your  correspondence ;  had  not 
other  eyes  been  there  before  mine,  nothing,  of 
course,  could  induce  me  to  look  now ;  but  I  know 
Madame  de  Rochelaurier  well  enough  to  be  sure 
she  has  not  skipped  a  word.  I  must  look  over 
my  hand,  you  see,  as  it  is.  It  was  hard  enough 
to  get  them  from  her  at  all,  as  you  may  imagine ; 
I  hardly  know  myself  how  I  did  get  it  done ;  mais 
on  a  ses  moyens.  What  I  have  seen,  in  the 
meantime,  is  quite  enough  to  show  me  that  one 
of  these  letters  would  fall  like  a  flake  of  thawed 
ice  on  the  most  feverish  of  a  boy's  rhapsodies. 
With  the  least  of  these  small  ink-and-paper  pills, 
I  will  undertake  to  clear  your  suitor's  head  at 
once,  and  bring  him  to  a  sane  and  sound  view  of 
actual  things.  I  know  what  boys  want.  They 

222 


A  Year's    Letters 

will  bear  with  any  imaginable  antecedent  except 
one  which  makes  their  own  grand  passion  look 
like  a  pale  late  proof  taken  off  at  a  second  or 
third  impression.  All  the  proofs  before  letters 
you  left  in  Octave's  hands  long  ago — your  senti- 
ment (excuse,  but  this  is  the  way  he  will  take  it) 
has  come  down  now  to  the  common  print.  Show 
him  what  the  old  friend  really  was  to  you,  and 
he  will  congeal  at  once.  I  don't  imagine  you 
ever  meant  actually  to  let  him  thaw  and  distil 
into  a  tender  dew  of  fine  feeling  at  your  feet; 
you  would  no  doubt  always  have  checked  him 
in  time — if  he  would  always  have  let  you.  But 
then,  upon  the  whole,  it  is  as  well  to  have  a 
weapon  at  hand.  I  believe  he  has  grown  all  but 
frantic  of  late,  and  has  wild  notions  of  the 
future — amusing  to  you  no  doubt  while  they 
last,  but  not  good  to  allow  of.  Now,  I  should 
not  like  to  lay  the  Saverny  letters  before  him, 
and  refrigerate  his  ideas  by  that  process;  one 
had  rather  dispense  with  it  while  one  can ;  but 
sooner  than  let  his  derangement  grow  to  con- 
firmed mania  and  become  the  practical  ruin  of 
him,  I  must  use  my  medicines.  I  know,  after 
he  had  taken  them,  he  would  be  sensible  again, 
and  give  up  his  dream  of  laws  broken  and  lives 
united.  Still,  I  had  rather  suppress  and  swamp 
altogether  the  Saverny  -  Rochelaurier  episode, 
and  all  that  hangs  on  to  it — rather  escape  being 
223 


Love's   Cross-currents 

mixed  up  in  the  matter  at  all,  if  I  can.  There 
is  a  better  way,  supposing  you  like  to  take  it. 
Something  you  will  see  must  be  done ;  suppose 
you  do  this.  Write  a  quiet  word  to  Reginald, 
in  a  way  to  put  an  end  to  all  this  folly  for  good. 
Say  he  must  leave  off  writing ;  we  know  (thanks 
to  your  own  excellent  feeling  and  sense)  that 
he  does  write.  Lay  it  on  your  husband,  if  you 
like — but  make  it  credible.  Leave  no  room  for 
appeal.  Put  it  in  this  way,  suppose,  as  you 
could  do  far  better  than  I  can  for  you.  That 
an  intimacy  cannot  last  which  cannot  exist 
without  exciting  unpleasant,  unfriendly  remark. 
That  you  have  no  right,  no  reason,  and  no  wish 
to  be  offered  up  in  the  Iphigenia  manner  for  the 
sake  of  arousing  the  adverse  winds  of  rumour 
and  scandal  to  the  amusement  of  a  matronly 
public.  That  you  are  sorry  to  d6sillusionner 
even  "a  fool  of  his  folly,"  and  regret  any  vexa- 
tion you  may  give,  but  do  not  admit  (I  would 
just  intimate  this  much,  as  I  am  sure  you  can 
so  well  afford  to  do)  that  he  ever  had  reason 
for  his  unreason.  That,  in  a  word,  for  your  sake 
and  his  and  other  people's,  you  must  pass  for 
the  present  from  intimates  into  strangers,  and 
may  hope,  if  both  please,  to  lapse  again  in 
course  of  time  from  strangers  into  friends.  I 
think  this  will  do  for  the  ground-plan — add  any 
intimation  or  decoration  you  like,  I  for  one  will 
224 


A   Year's    Letters 

never  find  or  indicate  a  fault.  Only  be  un- 
answerable, leave  no  chance  of  room  for  resist- 
ance or  reply,  shut  him  up,  as  you  say,  at  once 
on  any  plea,  and  I  will  accept  your  point  of 
action  and  act  after  it — he  need  never,  and  never 
shall,  be  made  wiser  on  the  subject  than  you 
please.  The  old  letters  shall  never  have  an- 
other chance  of  air  or  light.  If  you  don't  like 
writing  to  silence  him,  I  can  but  use  them  faute 
de  mieux  —  for,  of  course,  the  boy  must  be 
brought  up  short;  but  I  think  my  way  is  the 
better  and  more  graceful.  Do  not  you  ? 

It  is  a  pity  that  in  putting  a  stop  to  folly  we 
must  make  an  end  of  pleasant  intercourse  and 
the  friendly  daily  habits  of  intimate  acquaint- 
ance. I  can  quite  imagine  and  appreciate  the 
sort  of  regret  with  which  one  resigns  oneself  to 
any  such  rupture.  For  my  part  it  is  simply 
the  canon  of  our  Church  about  men's  grand- 
mothers which  keeps  me  safe  on  Platonic  terms 
with  our  friend.  Some  day  I  shall  console  and 
revenge  myself  by  writing  a  novel  fit  to  beat 
M.  Feydeau  out  of  the  field  on  that  tender  topic. 
Figure  to  yourself  the  exquisite  effects  that 
might  so  well  be  made.  The  grandmother 
might  at  last  see  my  hero's  ardour  cooling  after 
a  bright  brief  interval  of  birdlike  pleasure  and 
butterfly  love — volupte  supreme  et  touchante 
ou  les  rides  se  fondent  sous  les  baisers  et  les  lois 
225 


Love's   Cross-currents 

s'effacent  sous  les  larmes — all  that  style;  and 
when  compelled  to  unclasp  her  too  tender  arms 
from  the  neck  of  her  jeune  premier,  the  vener- 
able lady  might  sadly  and  resignedly  pass  him 
on,  shall  we  suppose  to  his  aunt  ?  A  pathetic 
intrigue  might  be  worked  out,  by  which  she 
would  (without  loving  him)  seduce  her  son-in- 
law  so  as  to  leave  the  coast  clear  for  the  grand- 
son who  had  forsaken  her,  and  with  a  heart 
wrung  to  the  core  by  self -devoted  love  prepare 
her  daughter's  mind  to  accept  a  nephew's  hom- 
age: finally  see  the  young  people  made  happy 
in  each  other  and  an  assenting  uncle,  and  take 
arsenic,  or,  at  sight  of  her  work  completed, 
die  of  a  cerebral  congestion  (one  could  make 
more  surgery  out  of  that),  invoking  on  the  heads 
of  child  and  grandchild  a  supreme  benediction, 
baptized  in  the  sacred  tears  which  drop  on 
the  grave  of  her  own  love.  Upon  my  word 
I  think  it  an  idea  which  might  bear  splendid 
fruit  in  the  hands  of  a  great  realistic  novelist. 
I  see  my  natural  profession  now,  but  I  fear  too 
late. 

In  good  earnest  I  am  sorry  this  must  be  the 
end.  A  year  ago  I  was  too  glad  to  enlist  your 
kindness  on  Reginald's  behalf;  and  I  can  see 
how  that  kindness  led  you  in  time  to  put  up  with 
his  folly.  I  am  sure  I  can  but  feel  the  more 
tenderly  and  thankfully  towards  you  if  indeed 
226 


A   Year's    Letters 

you  have  ever  come  to  regret  for  a  moment  that 
things  were  as  they  are.  I  have  no  right  to 
reproach,  and  no  heart:  no  one  has  the  right; 
no  one  should  have  the  heart.  You  know 
my  lifelong  abhorrence  of  the  rampant  Briton, 
female  or  male ;  and  my  perfect  disbelief  in  the 
peculiar  virtue  of  the  English  hearth  and  home. 
There  is  no  safeguard  against  the  natural  sense 
of  liking.  But  the  time  to  count  up  and  pay 
down  comes  for  us  all ;  we  have  no  pleasures  of 
our  own ;  we  hold  no  comforts  but  on  sufferance. 
Things  are  constant  only  to  division  and  decline. 
The  quiet  end  of  a  friendship  I  have  at  times 
thought  sadder  than  the  stormiest  end  of  a  love- 
match.  Chi  saf  But  I  do  know  which  I  had 
rather  keep  by  me  while  I  can.  It  is  a  pity  you 
two  poor  children  are  not  to  be  given  more  play, 
or  to  see  much  more  of  each  other.  He  will  miss 
his  friend,  her  sense  and  grace  and  wit,  the 
exquisite  companionship  of  her,  when  he  has 
done  with  the  fooleries  of  sentiment.  You,  I 
must  rather  hope  for  his  sake,  may  miss  the  sight 
of  him  for  a  time,  the  ardent  ways  and  eager 
faiths  and  fancies,  all  the  freshness  and  colour 
and  fervour  of  his  time  and  temperament ;  per- 
haps even  a  little  the  face  and  eyes  and  hair; 
ce  sont  la  des  choses  qui  ne  gatent  jamais  rien ; 
we  never  know  when  we  begin  or  cease  to  care  for 
such  things.  I  too  have  had  everything  hand- 
227 


Love's    Cross-currents 

some  about  me,  and  I  have  had  losses.  You  see, 
my  dear,  the  flowers  (and  weeds)  will  grow  over 
all  this  in  good  time.  One  thing  and  one  time 
we  may  be  quite  sure  of  seeing — the  day  when 
we  shall  have  well  forgotten  everything.  It  is 
not  uncomfortable,  as  one  gets  old,  to  recollect 
that  we  shall  not  always  remember.  The  years 
will  do  without  us;  and  we  are  not  fit  to  keep 
the  counsel  of  the  Fates.  In  good  time  we  shall 
be  out  of  the  way  of  things,  and  have  nothing  in 
all  the  world  to  desire  or  deplore.  When  recollec- 
tion makes  us  sorry,  we  can  remember  that  we 
shall  forget.  I  never  did  much  harm,  or  good 
perhaps,  in  my  life ;  so  at  least  I  think  and  hope ; 
but  I  should  be  sorry  to  suppose  I  had  to  live 
for  ever  in  sight  of  the  memory  of  it.  Few  could 
rationally  like  to  face  that  likelihood  if  they 
once  realized  it.  There  is  no  fear ;  for  a  time  is 
sure  to  come  which  will  have  to  take  no  care  of 
the  best  of  us,  as  our  time  has  to  take  none  of 
plenty  who  were  better.  I  showed  you,  now 
some  eighteen  months  since,  when  it  first  ap- 
peared, I  think,  that  most  charming  song  of 
"  Love  and  Age,"  the  one  bit  of  verse  that  I  have 
liked  well  enough  for  years  to  dream  even  of  cry- 
ing over;  the  sweetest,  noblest  piece  of  simple 
sense  and  manly  music,  to  my  poor  thinking, 
that  this  age  of  turbulent  metrical  machinery 
has  ever  turned  out;  and  it,  by-the-by,  hardly 
228 


A   Year's    Letters 

belongs  to  you.  Your  people  have  not  the 
secret  of  such  clear  pure  language,  such  plain 
pellucid  words  and  justice  of  feeling.  Since  my 
first  reading  of  it,  the  cadences  that  open  and 
close  it  come  back  perpetually  into  my  ears  like 
the  wash  of  water  on  shingle  up  and  down,  when 
I  think  of  times  gone  or  coming.  I  never  cov- 
eted a  verse  till  I  read  that  in  "  Gryll  Grange  " ; 
there  is  in  it  such  an  exquisite  absence  of  the 
wrong  thing  and  presence  of  the  right  thing 
throughout — just  enough  words  for  the  thought 
and  just  enough  thought  for  the  matter ;  a  wise, 
sweet,  strong  piece  of  work.  We  shall  leave 
the  years  to  come  nothing  much  better  than 
that.  What  is  said  there  about  love  and  time 
and  all  the  rest  of  it  is  the  essence,  incomparably 
well  distilled,  of  all  that  we  can  reasonably  want 
or  mean  to  say.  We  must  let  things  pass ;  when 
their  time  is  come  for  going,  or  when  if  they  stay 
they  can  but  turn  to  poison,  we  must  help  them 
to  be  gone.  And  then  we  had  best  forget. 

It  is  a  dull,  empty  end ;  a  blank  upshot ;  but 
you  know  what  good  authority  we  have  for 
saying  there  are  no  such  things  as  catastrophes. 
I  admit  it  is  rather  a  case  of  girl's  head  and 
fish's  tail ;  but  you  must  see  how  deep  and  acute 
that  eye  of  Balzac's  was  for  such  things.  His 
broad  maxims  are  the  firmest-footed  and  least 
likely  to  slip  of  any  great  thinker's  I  know; 
16  229 


Love's    Cross-currents 

they  have  such  tough  root  and  tight  hold  on 
facts.  As  to  our  year's  work  and  wages,  we 
may  all  say  truly  enough,  Le  de"noument  c'est 
qu'il  n'y  a  pas  de  de'noument.  I  prophesied 
that  last  year,  when  there  first  seemed  to  be  a 
likelihood  of  some  domestic  romance  getting 
under  way.  The  point  of  such  things,  as  I  told 
Amy,  is  just  that  they  come  to  nothing.  There 
were  very  pretty  scandalous  materials;  the 
making  of  an  excellent  roman  de  mceurs — in- 
time  et  tant  soit  peu  scabreux.  Amy  and  your 
brother,  you  doubtless  remember,  gave  symp- 
toms of  being  touched,  as  flirting  warmed  to 
feeling;  they  had  begun  playing  the  game  of 
cousins  with  an  over-liberal  allowance  of  senti- 
ment. Redgie  again  was  mad  to  upset  con- 
ventions and  vindicate  his  right  of  worship- 
ping you;  had  no  idea,  for  his  part,  of  keeping 
on  the  sunny  side  of  elopement.  Joli  manage! 
one  might  have  said  at  first  sight — knowing 
this  much,  and  not  knowing  what  English- 
women are  here  well  known  to  be.  And  here 
we  are  at  the  last  chapter  with  no  harm  done 
as  yet.  You  end  as  model  wife,  she  as  model 
mother;  you  wind  up  your  part  with  a  suitor 
to  dismiss,  she  hers  with  a  baby  to  bring  up. 
All  is  just  as  it  was,  as  far  as  we  all  go ;  the  one 
difference,  lamentable  enough  as  it  is,  between 
this  and  last  year  is  the  simple  doing  of  chance, 
230 


A   Year's   Letters 

and  quite  outside  of  any  doing  of  ours.  But 
for  poor  Edmund's  accidental  death,  which  I 
am  fatalist  enough  to  presume  must  have  hap- 
pened anyhow,  we  should  all  be  just  where  we 
were.  Not  an  event  in  the  whole  course  of 
things;  not,  I  think,  so  much  as  an  incident; 
very  meagre  stuff  for  a  French  workman  to  be 
satisfied  with.  We  must  be  content  never  to 
make  a  story,  and  may  instead  reflect  with 
pride  what  a  far  better  thing  it  is  to  live  in  the 
light  of  English  feeling  and  under  the  rule  of 
English  habit. 

You  will  give  Frank  my  best  love  and  ex- 
cuses in  the  name  of  us  all.  He  must  write  to 
me  before  too  long.  For  yourself  accept  this 
as  I  mean  it ;  act  as  you  like  or  think  wise,  and 
believe  me  at  all  times 

Your  most  affectionate  aunt, 

HELENA  MIDHURST. 


XXIX 

FRANCIS  CHEYNE  TO  LADY  MIDHURST 

Lidcombe,  Feb.  i$th. 

MY  DEAR  AUNT  HELENA: 

I  SHALL  be  clear  of  this  place  to-morrow;  I 
am  going  for  a  fortnight  or  so  to  Blocksham. 
I  quite  agree  it  will  be  best  for  me  not  to  have 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  Amicia.  You  will,  I 
hope,  tell  her  how  thoroughly  and  truly  glad 
I  am;  and  that  if  I  could  have  known  earlier 
how  things  were  to  turn  out  it  would  have 
simply  saved  me  some  unpleasant  time.  As 
to  meeting,  when  it  can  be  pleasant  to  her,  I 
shall  be  very  grateful  for  leave  to  come — and 
till  then  it  is  quite  good  enough  to  hear  of  her 
doing  well  again.  Only  one  thing  could  add 
to  my  perfectly  sincere  pleasure  at  this  change 
— to  know  I  had  been  able  to  bring  it  about 
by  my  own  will  and  deed ;  as  I  would  have  done 
long  since.  I  hope  she  will  get  all  right  again, 
and  the  sooner  for  being  back  here.  I  shall 
not  pretend  to  suppose  you  don't  know  now 
that  I  care  more  about  her  and  what  happens 
232 


A  Year's    Letters 

to  her  than  about  most  things  in  the  world. 
If  all  goes  well  with  her  nothing  will  go  far 
wrong  with  me  while  I  live.  I  dare  say  I  shall 
do  well  enough  for  the  professions  yet,  when  I 
fall  to  and  try  a  turn  with  them ;  and  I  cannot 
say,  honestly,  how  thankful  I  am  to  be  well  rid 
of  a  name  and  place  that  I  never  could  have 
been  glad  of. 

We  have  more  to  thank  you  for  than  your 
kindness  as  to  this.  I  have  seen  my  sister 
since  you  wrote,  and  she  has  shown  me  some 
part  of  your  letter.  I  do  not  think  we  shall 
have  any  more  trouble  at  home.  My  brother- 
in-law  knows  nothing  of  it.  She  has  written  I 
believe  to  Reginald;  I  must  say  she  was  angry 
enough,  but  insists  on  no  notice.  If  she  were 
ever  to  find  home  all  but  too  comfortless  to 
put  up  with,  I  could  not  well  wonder;  she  has 
little  there  to  look  to  or  lean  upon.  We  are 
out  of  the  fighting  times,  but  if  M.  de  Saverny 
or  any  other  man  living  were  to  try  and  make 
base  use  of  her  kindness  and  innocence,  I  sup- 
pose no  one  could  well  blame  or  laugh  at  me 
if  I  exacted  atonement  from  him.  As  it  is,  I 
declare  if  he  comes  in  her  way,  and  I  find  he 
has  not  kept  entire  silence  as  to  the  letters 
written  when  she  was  too  young  and  too  good 
to  dream  what  baseness  and  stupidity  there  is 
among  people,  I  will  prevent  him  from  going 
233 


Love's    Cross-currents 

about  and  holding  up  his  head  again  as  a  man 
of  honour.  Any  one  from  this  time  forth  who 
gives  her  any  trouble  by  writing  or  by  word  of 
mouth  shall  at  once  answer  to  me  for  it.  I 
have  no  right  to  say  that  I  believe  or  do  not 
believe  she  has  never  felt  a  regret  or  a  wish. 
She  is  answerable  to  no  man  for  that.  I  do 
say  she  has  given  nobody  reason  to  think  of 
her,  or  a  right  to  speak  of  her,  except  with  all 
honour  —  and  if  necessary  I  wish  people  to 
know  I  intend  to  stand  by  what  I  say. 

She  is  quite  content,  and  I  believe  deter- 
mined, to  see  no  more  of  R.  H.  for  some  time; 
quite  ready  too  to  allow  that  accident  and  a 
time  of  trouble  let  him  perhaps  too  much  into 
the  secret  of  an  uncongenial  household  life,  and 
that  she  was  over  ready  to  look  for  companion- 
ship where  it  was  hardly  wise  to  look  for  it. 
Few  men  (as  she  says)  at  his  age  could  have  had 
the  sense  or  chivalrous  feeling  to  understand 
all  and  presume  upon  nothing.  She  said  it 
simply,  but  in  a  way  to  make  any  one  ashamed 
of  mistaking  for  an  instant  such  a  quiet  noble 
nature  as  she  has.  I  have  only  now  to  thank 
you  for  helping  us  both  to  get  quit  of  the  mat- 
ter without  trouble  or  dispute.  I  should  be 
ashamed  to  thank  you  for  doing  my  sister  the 
simple  justice  not  to  misconstrue  her  share  in 
it.  If  there  ever  was  any  evil-speaking,  I  hope 
234 


A   Year's    Letters 

and  suppose  it  is  now  broken  up  for  good.  For 
the  rest,  I  have  agreed  to  leave  it  at  present  in 
your  hands  and  hers — but  if  ever  she  wants 
help  or  defence,  I  shall,  of  course,  be  on  the 
outlook  to  give  it.  I  have  only  to  add  mes- 
sages from  us  both,  and  remain,  my  dear  aunt, 
Your  affectionate  nephew, 

FR.  CHEYNE. 


XXX 

LADY  MIDHURST  TO  LADY  CHEYNE 

Lidcombe,  Feb.  2$th. 

MY  DEAR  CHILD: 

FIRST  salute  the  fellow-baby  in  my  name, 
and  then  you  shall  have  news.  I  assume  that 
is  done,  and  will  begin.  Two  days  here  with 
your  father  have  put  me  up  to  the  work  there 
is  to  do.  I  shall  not  take  you  into  council  as 
to  estate  affairs,  madame  la  baronne.  When 
the  heir  is  come  to  ripe  boyhood  you  may  take 
things  in  hand  for  yourself.  Meantime  we 
shall  keep  you  both  in  tutelage,  and  grow  fat 
on  privy  peculation ;  so  that  if  you  find  no  holes 
in  the  big  Lidcombe  cheese  when  you  cut  it, 
it  will  not  be  the  fault  of  our  teeth.  So  much 
for  you  and  your  bald  imp ;  but  you  want  news, 
I  suppose,  of  friends.  I  called  at  Blocksham, 
and  saw  the  Rad worths  in  the  flesh — that  is, 
in  the  bones  and  cosmetics ;  for  the  male  is  gone 
to  bone,  and  the  female  to  paint.  The  poor 
man  calls  aloud  for  an  embalmer:  the  poor 
woman  cries  pitifully  for  an  enameller.  They 
236 


A  Year's    Letters 

get  on  well  enough  again  by  this  time,  I  believe. 
To  use  her  own  style,  she  is  dead  beat,  and  quite 
safe;  viciously  resigned.  I  think  we  may  look 
for  peace.  She  would  have  me  racked  if  she 
could,  no  doubt,  but  received  me  smiling  from 
the  tips  of  her  teeth  outwards,  and  with  a  soft 
dry  pressure  of  the  fingers.  Not  a  hint  of  any- 
thing kept  back.  Evidently,  too,  she  holds 
her  brother  well  in  leash.  Frank  pleased  me: 
he  was  courteous,  quiet,  without  any  sort  of 
affectation,  dissembled  or  displayed.  I  gave 
him  sufficient  accounts,  and  he  was  grateful; 
could  not  have  taken  the  position  and  played 
a  rather  hard  part  more  gracefully  than  he  did. 
We  said  little,  and  came  away  with  all  good 
speed.  The  house  is  a  grievous  sort  of  place 
now,  and  likely  to  stay  so.  I  have  no  doubt 
she  will  set  all  her  wits  to  work  and  punish  him 
for  her  failure.  She  will  hardly  get  up  a  seri- 
ous affair  again,  or  it  might  be  a  charity  to 
throw  her  some  small  animal  by  way  of  lighter 
food.  It  would  not  surprise  me  if  she  fell  to 
philanthropic  labour,  or  took  some  devotional 
drug  by  way  of  stimulant.  The  bureau  d'a- 
mourettes  is  a  bankrupt  concern,  you  see:  her 
sensation-shop  is  closed  for  good.  I  prophesy 
she  will  turn  a  decent  worrying  wife  of  the 
simpler  Anglican  breed;  home-keeping,  sharp- 
edged,  earnestly  petty  and  drily  energetic. 
237 


Love's   Cross-currents 

Negro-worship  now,  or  foreign  missions,  will 
be  about  her  mark;  perhaps  too  a  dash  and 
sprinkle  of  religious  feeling,  with  the  chill  just 
off;  with  a  mild  pinch  of  the  old  Platonic  mixt- 
ure now  and  then  to  flavour  and  leaven  her 
dead  lump  of  life:  I  can  imagine  her  stages 
well  enough  for  the  next  dozen  or  score  of  years. 
Pity  she  had  not  more  stock  in  hand  to  start 
with. 

I  have  been  at  Plessey  too ;  one  could  not  be 
content  with  seeing  half  a  result.  Captain  H. 
was  more  gracious  to  me  than  you  would  be- 
lieve. I  suspect  the  man  has  wit  enough  to 
see  that  but  for  my  poor  offices  his  boy  would 
be  now  off  Heaven  knows  whither,  and  stuck 
up  to  the  ears  in  such  a  mess  as  nothing  could 
ever  have  scraped  him  thoroughly  clean  of. 
He  and  Redgie  are  at  last  on  the  terms  of  an 
armed  peace — very  explosive  terms,  you  know ; 
but  decent  while  they  last,  and  preferable  to  a 
tooth-and-nail  system.  I  will  say  I  behaved 
admirably  to  him ;  asked  what  plans  he  had  for 
our  boy — what  he  thought  the  right  way  to 
take  with  him — assented  and  consented,  and 
suggested  and  submitted;  altogether,  made 
myself  a  model.  It  is  a  fact  that  at  this  day 
he  thinks  Redgie  might  yet  be,  in  time,  bent 
and  twisted  and  melted  down  into  the  Church 
mould  of  man — cut  close  to  the  fit  of  a  sur- 
238 


A    Year.'s    Letters 

plice.  Now  I  truly  respect  and  enjoy  a  fin- 
ished sample  of  clergy;  no  trade  makes  better 
company;  I  have  known  them  a  sort  of  cross 
between  artist  and  diplomate  which  is  charm- 
ing. Then  they  have  always  about  them  a 
suppressed  sense  of  something  behind — some 
hint  of  professional  reserve  which  does  not 
really  change  them,  but  does  colour  them ;  some- 
thing which  fails  of  being  a  check  on  their  style, 
but  is  exquisitely  serviceable  as  a  sauce  to  it. 
A  cleric  who  is  also  a  man  of  this  world,  and 
has  nothing  of  the  cross-bone  type,  is  as  per- 
fect company  as  you  can  get  or  want.  But 
conceive  Redgie  at  any  imaginably  remote  date 
coming  up  recast  in  that  state  out  of  the  cru- 
cible of  time!  I  kept  a  bland  face  though,  and 
hardly  sighed  a  soft  semi-dissent.  At  least,  I 
said  we  might  turn  him  to  something  good  yet ; 
that  I  did  hope  and  think.  The  fatherly  nerve 
was  touched;  he  warmed  to  me  expressively. 
I  am  sure  now  the  poor  man  thought  he  had 
been  too  hard  on  me  all  these  years  in  his  pri- 
vate mind,  put  bitter  constructions  on  very  in- 
nocent conduct  of  mine — had  something,  after 
all,  to  atone  for  on  his  side.  He  grew  quite 
softly  confidential  and  responsive  before  our 
talk  was  out.  Ah,  my  dear,  if  you  could  see 
what  odd,  tumbled,  shapeless  recollections  it 
brought  up,  to  find  myself  friendly  with  him  and 
239 


Love's   Cross-currents 

exchanging  wishes  and  hopes  of  mine  against 
his,  in  all  sympathy  and  reliance!  I  have  not 
earned  a  stranger  sensation  for  years.  Ages 
ago,  before  any  of  your  set  were  born, — before 
he  married  your  mother:  when  he  was  quite 
young,  poor,  excitable,  stupid,  and  pleasant- 
infinite  ages  ago,  when  the  country  and  I  were 
in  our  thirties  and  he  in  his  twenties,  we  used 
to  talk  in  that  way.  I  felt  ready  to  turn  and 
look  round  for  things  I  had  missed  since  I  was 
six  years  old.  I  should  hardly  have  been  taken 
aback  if  my  brothers  had  come  in  and  we  had 
set  to  playing  together  like  babies.  To  be  face 
to  face  with  such  a  dead  and  buried  bit  of  life 
as  that  was  so  quaint  that  stranger  things  even 
would  have  fallen  flat  after  it.  However,  there 
was  no  hoisting  of  sentimental  colours  on  either 
side:  though  I  suppose  no  story  ever  had  a 
stranger  end  to  it  than  ours.  To  this  day  I 
don't  know  why  I  made  him  or  let  him  marry 
your  mother. 

I  told  him  I  must  see  Redgie  and  take  him 
in  hand  by  private  word  of  mouth.  He  was 
quite  nice  about  it,  and  left  the  boy  to  me, 
smiling  even  as  he  turned  us  over  to  each  other ; 
more  benign  than  he  ever  was  when  I  came 
over  to  see  Redgie  in  his  school-days:  a  time 
that  seemed  farther  off  now  than  the  years  be- 
fore his  birth.  I  can't  tell  you  how  odd  it  was 
240 


A   Year's    Letters 

to  be  thrown  back  into  '52  without  warning — 
worse  than  the  proverbial  middle  of  next  week. 
I  will  say  for  Redgie  he  was  duly  ashamed,  and 
never  looked  sillier  in  his  boyish  time  than 
when  I  took  him  to  task.  Clara,  I  told  him, 
had,  as  far  as  I  knew,  behaved  excellently ;  but 
I  wanted  to  have  facts.  Dismissal  was  legible 
on  him  all  over;  but  the  how  I  was  bent  on 
making  out.  So  in  time  I  got  to  some  fair 
guess  at  the  manner  of  her  final  stroke.  It  was 
sharp  and  direct.  She  wrote  not  exactly  after 
my  dictation  (which  I  never  thought  she  need 
do,  or  would),  but  simply  in  the  resolute  sacri- 
ficial style.  She  forbade  him  to  answer;  re- 
fused to  read  him,  or  reply  if  she  read;  would 
never  see  him  till  all  had  blown  over  for  good. 
It  seems  she  could  not  well  deny  that  not  long 
since  he  might  have  carried  her  off  her  feet — 
which  feet  she  had  now  happily  regained. 
Heaven  knows,  my  dear  child,  what  she  could 
or  could  not  deny  if  she  chose :  I  confess  I  can- 
not yet  make  up  my  mind  whether  or  no  she 
ever  had  an  idea  of  decamping,  and  divorcing 
with  all  ties ;  it  is  not  like  her ;  but  who  can  be 
sure?  She  has  none  now.  Honestly,  I  do 
suspect  that  a  personal  bias  of  liking  did  at 
times  get  mixed  up  with  her  sentimental  spirit 
of  intrigue;  and  that  she  would  have  done 
things  for  Redgie  which  a  fellow  ten  years 
241 


Love's   Cross-currents 

older  or  a  thought  less  handsome  would  never 
have  made  her  think  of:  in  effect,  that  she  was 
in  love  with  him.  She  is  quite  capable  of  be- 
ing upset  by  simple  beauty :  if  ever  she  were  to 
have  a  real  lover  now,  I  believe  he  would  be  a 
fool  and  very  nice-featured.  It  is  the  supreme 
Platonic  retribution  —  the  Nemesis  of  senti- 
mental talent,  which  always  clutches  such  run- 
ners as  she  is  before  they  turn  the  post.  There 
was  a  small  grain  of  not  dubious  pathos  in  her 
letter:  she  was  fond  enough  of  him  to  regret 
what  she  did  not  quite  care  to  fight  for.  What 
she  told  him  I  don't  know,  nor  how  she  put  it: 
I  can  guess,  though.  She  has  done  for  his 
first  love,  at  any  rate.  He  knows  he  was  a  fool, 
and  I  did  not  press  for  his  opinion  of  her.  One 
may  suppose  she  put  him  upon  honour,  and 
made  the  best  of  herself.  I  should  guess,  too, 
that  she  gave  hints  of  what  he  might  do  in  the 
way  of  annoyance  if  "he  were  not  ready  to  for- 
give and  make  friends  at  a  .distance.  That 
you  see  would  prick  him  on  the  chivalrous 
side,  and  he  would  obey  and  hold  his  tongue 
and  hand  at  once — as  he  has  done.  Anyhow, 
the  thing  is  well  killed  and  put  under  ground, 
with  no  fear  of  grave-stealers ;  there  is  not  even 
bone  enough  left  of  it  to  serve  the  purpose  of 
a  moral  dissection.  The  chief  mourner  (if  he 
did  but  know  it)  should  be  Ernest  Radworth. 
242 


A    Year's    Letters 

I  could  cry  over  that  wretchedest  of  husbands 
and  students  when  I  think  of  the  thorns  in  his 
pillow,  halters  in  his  pew,  and  ratsbane  in  his 
porridge,  which  a  constant  wife  will  now  have 
to  spend  her  time  in  getting  ready. 

Redgie  was  very  fair  about  her ;  would  have 
no  abuse  and  no  explanation.  "You  see,"  he 
said,  "  she  tells  me  what  she  chooses  to  tell,,  and 
that  one  is  bound  to  take;  but  I  have  no  sort; 
of  business  now  to  begin  peeping  and  snuffing 
at  anything  beyond.  I  thought  once,  you 
know,  we  both  had  a  right  to  ask  or  answer; 
that  was  when  she  seemed  to  care  about  it. 
One  can't  be  such  a  blackguard  as  to  try  and 
take  it  out  of  her  for  changing  her  mind.  She 
was  quite  right  to  think  twice  and  do  as  she 
chose ;  and  the  best  I  can  do  now  is  to  keep  off 
and  not  get  in  her  way."  Of  course  the  boy 
talks  as  if  the  old  tender  terms  between  them 
had  been  broken  off  for  centuries,  and  their 
eyes  were  now  meeting  across  a  bottomless  pit 
of  change.  I  shall  not  say  another  word  on 
the  matter:  all  is  as  straight  and  right  as  it 
need  be,  though  I  know  that  only  last  month 
he  was  writing  her  the  most  insane  letters. 
These,  one  may  hope,  she  will  think  fit  to  burn. 
To  him  I  believe  she  had  the  sense  never  to 
write  at  any  length  or  to  any  purpose  but  twice, 
this  last  time  being  one.  And  so  our  little  bit 
243 


Love's   Cross-currents 

of  comedy  slips  off  the  stage  without  noise,  and 
the  curtain  laps  down  over  it.  Lucky  it  never 
turned  to  the  tearful  style,  as  it  once  threatened 
to  do. 

I  need  not  say  that  Redgie  does  not  expect 
to  love  seriously  again.  Not  that  he  says  it; 
he  has  just  enough  sense  of  humour  to  keep  the 
assertion  down;  but  evidently  he  thinks  it. 
Some  one  has  put  a  notion  into  the  Captain's 
head  about  Philomene  de  Rochelaurier— Clara 
herself,  perhaps,  for  aught  I  know ;  she  is  quite 
ingenious  enough  to  have  tried  that  touch  while 
the  real  play  was  still  in  rehearsal.  Nothing 
will  come  of  that,  though;  I  shall  simply  re- 
conquer the  boy,  and  hold  him  in  hand  till  I 
find  a  woman  fit  to  have  charge  of  him.  I  hope 
he  will  turn  to  some  good,  seriously.  Some  of 
his  friends  are  not  bad  friends  for  him;  I  like 
that  young  Audley  well  enough,  and  he  seems 
to  believe  in  Redgie  at  a  quite  irrational  rate. 
Perhaps  I  do  too.  He  must  take  his  way,  or 
make  it ;  and  we  shall  see. 

As  to  the  marriage  matter,  I  have  thought 
lately  that  Armande  might  be  given  her  own 
way  and  Frank  married  to  the  girl — if  they  are 
all  of  one  mind  about  it.  It  sounds  rather  Louis 
Quinze  to  bdcler  a  match  in  this  fashion,  but  I 
don't  see  why  it  should  not  come  to  good.  He 
may  as  well  marry  now  as  later.  I  don't  at 
244 


A  Year's    Letters 

all  know  what  he  will  make  in  the  professional 
line ;  and  he  can  hardly  throw  over  all  thoughts 
of  it.  I  did  think  of  proposing  he  should  be  at 
the  head  of  the  estates  for  a  time,  in  the  capac- 
ity of  chief  manager  and  overlooker ;  but  there 
were  rubs  in  the  way  of  that  plan.  It  is  a  nice 
post,  and  might  be  made  a  nice  sinecure — or 
demicure,  with  efficient  business  people  under 
and  about  one;  not  bad  work  for  a  cadet  de 
famille,  and  has  been  taken  on  like  terms  before 
now.  We  owe  him  something;  however,  we 
may  look  for  time  to  pay  it.  I  will  confess  to 
you  that  if  the  child  had  been  a  girl  I  meant 
to  have  brought  you  together  at  some  future 
day.  You  must  forgive  me;  for  the  heir's 
marrying  the  dowager  would  have  made  our 
friends  open  their  eyes  and  lips  a  little;  and 
things  are  much  better  as  they  are. 

17 


THE    END 


